Today
by TMBlue
Summary: Since the war, Hermione Granger has been distant for some unrevealed reason. Today, Ron Weasley has had enough.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:** Okay, so here's what this is. And there are two reasons why this update is NOT **Sharing Sleep**... haha_

_1. In the midst of writing Sharing Sleep, smut started to emerge, which is NOT going to go into Sharing Sleep. So I needed a place to toss it, and so this happened._

_2. My computer has finally decided to die a slow death in which it allows me to turn it on for 10 minutes at a time before going black. This is indeed the computer on which I have been writing SS. So, until I can either find a few hundred bucks lying around or a magical person who can spell a computer back into working order, I'm stuck. I can't copy the files onto another computer because the one I'm using now is at an office that I very rarely go to anymore, since being laid off... I'm hoping to make something happen in the next few weeks to fix my rather inconvenient circumstances...  
><em>

_Alright, so this story right here is nothing but smut and cursing, I mean like NC-17. So that's you warned. And instead of using italics for emphasized words, they're in caps. First of all, because it seemed necessary at the time, and secondly because I wrote this whole damn thing on my Blackberry and it has no knowledge of italics. That's what I've been reduced to!_

_And now, the best part... I want to thank (times infinity) and dedicate this story to my absolutely incredible **napchic** for inspiring me to keep writing this and for sending me the most amazing reviews to each chapter as I finished them! You are so, so wonderful and I cannot thank you enough for your friendship and for sharing the Ron/Hermione love with me. 3_

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

She flinched next to him and he openly stared at her, thighs inches apart on the couch. They'd been sitting here in silence since... how long had it been, now? Well, since he'd plopped down next to her with one of her books in his hands, planting himself just shy of her personal space and adopting HER usual routine of reading limitlessly without speaking... But he wasn't reading. It had all been a simple ruse, a passive effort made to get through to her.

He'd been doing a lot of that lately, passively trying to get things started with her. It was downright mental that he'd still have to call it that, that 'things' still weren't 'started', even though she had. Started them, that is... with that damn kiss that had yet to be discussed...

Bugger, or maybe HE had started things. After all, he'd accidentally confessed to LOVING her in sixth year, though even HE hadn't meant it the way it may have sounded. Not because he HADN'T meant it, but because he hadn't meant to SAY it that way, just sort of slipped out and he hadn't even realized what he'd maybe, sort of, kind of, almost, possibly done until much later when... oh, sod it...

Or wait, had SHE started things really, years ago, with her cryptic nonsense about a Yule Ball invite?

And then there was that bloody perfume he'd given her. And what the hell had THAT meant? Once again, he found himself not entirely sure of his own youthful intentions...

It was so clusterfucked and confusing that he usually gave it up as a bad job after several agonizing minutes of trying to unriddle it.

He shifted, unintentionally moving actually INTO her personal space now, an inch from her twitching leg, and he sighed as she flinched again.

Okay, usually, he'd simply groan and stomp off to sulk in his room, anxiously pacing because no books on earth could possibly explain how to work his way out of their current state of what-the-fuck...

But today.

Oh, today... He was going to do what he did best of all of the things. He was going to start a row. On purpose.

He swallowed hard, stretched his long fingers as if prepping for a fist fight, and blinked solidly in her direction.

"Hermione."

"Mm."

Eyes glazed with disinterest, she turned a page in her book and sank an inch lower into the couch cushions.

"Hermione," he tried again.

She wrinkled her nose, and maybe her eyes darted in his direction, taking him in peripherally, but that was all.

Nope. He wasn't going to drop it. Too bad...

Without warning or a second's pause, he snatched the book from her hands and leapt off the couch with it, slamming it shut and effectively losing her place for her. She gasped. Her eyes widened. And then she was glaring.

"Ron! For Merlin's... What is WRONG with you?"

"We're going to have a chat," he said, smirking outwardly but trembling from terror inwardly.

"A CHAT?" She huffed and pressed her fists down against the couch on either side of her, pushing herself up to stand in front of him. "So now you get to interrupt me whenever you please for a CHAT?"

He felt a deep sting for a moment, like his heart had been slapped, but he pushed through it by clearing his throat as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Today? Yes," he said boldly.

She glared even harder.

"First topic, why are you ignoring me?"

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly before she looked away from him and sighed.

"Ron, I haven't been-"

"No point pretending. I can tell when you're lying, you know."

Her eyes snapped back to his like opposite magnets held too close together.

"You absolutely cannot."

"How would you know?" he challenged, now flattening one palm against her confiscated book as he held it firmly in his other hand.

"Nevermind that!" she shouted. "Give me back my book."

"No."

Her jaw dropped.

"Are you serious?" she nearly whispered.

His heart was pounding so forcefully he could hear it against his eardrums. He was clearly standing on the edge of a cliff, below which was an endless abyss. And he'd dragged himself up here, knowing she could push him off with a jab from one little perfect finger...

He cleared his throat again.

"I just want to get a few things straight."

"Well..." she trailed off, and for a moment, he was ecstatic as he watched her caving in. But she resumed her previous air of defiance without a beat, and he deflated, unsure how much longer he could keep up the charade of being in charge. He was so far from in charge he didn't even know what in charge looked like. But all that mattered was that she thought he did...

"Well what?" he pressed.

"Well, you can wait until I've finished reading, can't you!"

He felt his next word vibrating on his tongue, and as he closed his eyes, he spoke it, against every ounce of better judgment he possessed...

"No."

When he opened his eyes again, she was simply blinking up at him, shocked speechless.

"You... You..." she tried, failing to form the next word...

But suddenly, she was paying far too much attention to the book in his hands, and he could literally FEEL her attempted nonverbal accio.

"No, you don't!" he shouted, repeating every shield charm he knew inside his own head at a frantically random pace.

"Ron!" she whined, and instead of knocking him off course, she'd served to fuel the fire. Because she couldn't possibly be MORE sexy, could she? And buggering hell, if she COULD...

He opened his mouth to speak, cheeks blazing, but she beat him to it.

"You get to say one more thing, so choose carefully!" she shouted, and he was sure he'd heard the dishes rattling in the kitchen sink, all the way through the half-shut door...

"Okay, then, tell me! Tell me why you've been acting as though I'm poisonous!" he bellowed back. If he was going to play her way, he was going for the kill. "It's not as if I haven't given it a go, trying to talk to you!"

He watched her expression turn from angry and annoyed to shocked and startled... Perfect.

"But, blimey," he continued, "I don't claim to be one hundred percent confident that you feel any of what I feel!"

Oh, he was either saying something very right or very wrong, judging by the way she was blinking too quickly, eyes glistening too brightly, cheeks fading from hot red to light pink, as if he was literally shouting the blood from her face...

"So, it's still a chance, isn't it," he pressed on, encouraged, "for me to go for it. And I'm being as brave as I bloody well can be without making an arse of myself!"

Her jaw dropped and her next words threatened to tumble out, but he knew what she was going to say as surely as if she'd actually said it already.

"-and I KNOW you kissed me," he shouted, effectively blocking her from interrupting.

The blood in her veins clearly made a u-turn, cheeks rushing from pink back to an even darker shade of red than before. His face figured it may as well catch up, temperature rising until he was near scorching...

"-but what the fuck does that matter now we survived and you're avoiding me like I'm a sodding blast-ended skrewt?"

She might have given his comparison a quarter of a grin, but he couldn't be sure because before it could register, she was screaming again...

"I'm not!"

Liar.

See? He COULD tell.

"Yes, you are!"

He watched her hair frazzle before his eyes as she breathed sharply in and out.

"I'm not avoiding you, you prat!"

Her voice echoed off his eardrums, and there was a solid ten seconds of nothing but ringing before the room fell silent enough for anyone to bother speaking again.

"I'm trying not to...to..." Hermione stammered, "to do it again!"

He furrowed his brow as she viciously avoided eye contact with him following her... admission? Well, he certainly had no effing clue what she was actually admitting!

"...to do what again?" he finally managed to ask.

She growled. Actually GROWLED out her frustration, untwisting her arms from across her chest and literally bouncing on her heels. He was sure he'd absolutely never seen her this riled up. And it was doing completely mental things to his gentlemanly ability to refrain from ripping various articles of his and/or her clothing from their bodies...

Completely inappropriate. He shook himself as she shouted-

"To jump on you!"

Right. So, she'd gone barmy. Or he'd completely lost his original train of thought.

He shoved a hand into his hair to tug painfully, intentionally, as he tried to snap back to some semblance of a point.

"Okay, wait," he heaved. "Just... just hang on."

He found her eyes on him again and they blinked at each other.

"I think I've got..." he started. "Yes, I have an idea."

"What?" she prodded eagerly.

"For the next-" He shifted Hermione's book to his left hand to lift his right wrist, inspecting his watch. "-hour, we do and say whatever we want and if the other person doesn't like it, we get an undo."

She raised her eyebrows half-skeptically.

"Undo?"

"Right." He nodded. This sounded rather brilliant, actually. " So, nothing we do or say has to matter. Because bloody hell, we have to get past this, don't you agree? I can't go on not knowing if I'm allowed to... to hold your sodding hand or not-"

"You're allowed."

"-or if I..." He came to a screeching halt as he realized she'd spoken. She'd... given him... permission? "Oh." Was it really possible to blush this thoroughly? "Well, thanks..." As shyly as he could ever remember, he grinned at her. "See! Not so hard. So go on, then. Let's figure this mess out."

He was allowed... to hold her hand!

Not at ALL the signal he'd been reading from her, cascading off of her in waves, actually!

So there was only one conclusion, at this point, to be drawn, now that he'd presented this new idea of unrestrained honesty...

He was a goddamn genius.

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><p><em><strong>AN Part 2:** Now that you've read it, what's the verdict? Shall I continue posting what I have of this, which is a lot, even though I can't yet post the SS update? I know I've had some people say that they want me to post whatever I have, and then some seem to just want updates to the in-progress stories like SS and With Me. What's your vote? Either way, writing things like this doesn't take away from SS time, it only serves as a place to dump the stuff that can't make it into those stories, or to work on something creative while I don't have access to my in progress story files._

_But. Whatever you would like, I shall deliver. And thank you all very much for reading this! It was (and still is) SO much fun to write._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Okay, Ron," she said, and he sensed she was somehow testing him. "Everybody else is out of the house until dinner?"

He nodded.

"So, you want us to be disgustingly honest about everything?"

He nodded again.

"-and just say whatever we think-"

He nodded thrice.

"-and then see if we're still standing at the end, or if we're even still friends?"

Well, of course that wasn't QUITE what he had in mind...

"No, I-"

"Because I'm warning you now," she interrupted, "this is your chance to back down."

Something about the way she was addressing him terrified him. He shivered as if he'd suddenly stepped out into the frigid arctic, though nothing could actually be further from the truth in mid-July, in the middle of fuck-knows country, with hay and weeds growing rampant and wild outside the Burrow's front door, clothes sticking to places he'd forgotten he had...

"Not backing down," he said nervously, attempting to cover for it with a half cough.

She eyed him suspiciously, but he shook his head to confirm his unwillingness to walk away from what he'd started. There were two ways, he supposed, in which this could go, and he knew how one of them ended... and he wasn't bleeding likely to give up that bit of a chance now for fear of the other option.

He'd said it. Nothing mattered, starting now, and when it was all over, they'd be able to take whatever they actually desired from this hour and discard the rest as if it hadn't happened... right? Right.

She shivered lightly and nodded.

"Well, considering you completely interrupted me for no good reason while I was PARTICULARLY invested in my book-"

But Ron stopped her there as he inspected the spine of what she'd been reading...

"You were PARTICULARLY invested in... 'Potions in Sixteenth Century Remedies and Trade Markets'?"

Somehow, the title was even MORE dull than he'd guessed. He chuckled and gave the book a rather nasty eye narrowing before returning his attention to Hermione, who was now tapping her fingers lightly against her thigh...

"Oh, will you just...!" She threw her arms up in exasperation. "Get on with it!"

Ron stared at her, instantly filled with a very specific, slightly overwhelming desire. So of course, he froze.

"This is ridiculous! What is it that you want so badly to tell me or... or to do to me-"

He suppressed a groan, but just barely...

"-that requires this kind of lunacy to accomplish? !"

She had gotten so tightly coiled by this stage that she was now breathing exclusively in pants through her mouth. He could literally take no more of this.

He heaved in a gigantic breath, shivered from the ends of his hair to the tips of his sock covered toes... and dropped her book to the floor, sweeping his arm dramatically until he caught her around the waist, tugging her so she nearly lost her balance stumbling into him with shock, gasping as he fitted her body all the way along his own and dipped his head with purpose...

...absolutely smashing his lips against hers. She went rigid on contact, but he hardly had time to notice before she'd melted, flinging her arms up around his neck. His tongue dug gently between her lips, but he needn't have bothered because she'd somehow jumped ahead of him, her tongue meeting his at lightning speed. He felt his knees give out and had to forcefully reassociate a tiny portion of his brain from 'oh-my-God-I'm-actually-kissing-Hermione' to 'don't-fall-on-your-arse'.

But then, her fingernails raked up through his hair, across his scalp, and he moaned loudly, pulling back from her. As her eyes very slowly fluttered open, she panted softly against his lips, lowering her now trembling hands to his shoulders.

"Please, PLEASE, tell me you don't want an undo..." he half-whispered, half-groaned, as her perfect shade of brown eyes glistened into his blue ones.

She giggled, and one corner of his mouth tugged itself up into a shy half-grin. She bit her lip, and his toes curled into the rug...

He happily sighed away all disbelief, accepting that she was really in his arms, and that his left palm was surely much too low on her back...

And then, all he could do was watch, as an avalanche of frustration cleared from her face.

"YOU jumped on ME," she stated clearly, almost awed, her voice deeper and scratchier than usual, and he paused mid-inhale to marginally calm down. He was on the absolute precipice of making a fool of himself...

Her words clicked into place, and he gawked at her.

"You've been trying..." he began, "trying NOT to do... what we just did? !"

The words sounded negative, but for some reason, he was as sure now that they were not as he was that he was in hopeless love with her... which was, of course, positively, without question, 100%...

"I...I didn't know if it was..." she started, hands sliding at an agonizingly slow pace from his shoulders to his collarbones, "...appropriate."

"Appropriate." He couldn't bring himself to even pose it as a question.

"After everything that happened, and all you were going through," she shrugged, "I didn't think it was fair to complicate things..."

A bit of her hair that he hadn't realised had been there tickled his jaw, stuck loosely to a bit of his stubble.

"Hermione, I'm not sure about you, but that was about the least complicated thing I've done since the war ended, k-kissing you..."

He realised, as he said the word, that it was still incredibly unfamiliar... KISSING. It sounded so delightfully foreign to him, applied to the girl who was now looking up at him like he'd knocked her over the head.

"Do...do you think?" she whispered, and he registered that at least two of his fingers had definitely slipped lower than her LOWER back, where they'd started... lower even than the waist of her jeans as he focused on the feeling of her tight denim under his trembling skin.

"Yes," he said, vaguely unsure at this point what he was even responding to.

Her hands slipped down again, between them, so her palms rested firmly against his chest. They'd been standing here for a minute, at least! Had to be! And he couldn't move to save his own life...

Bravely, he remembered how he'd started everything today, and he was able to gather enough strength and coherence to steer them back on course.

"Anything YOU'D like to say... or do... to me, Miss Granger?"

He'd melted her. He felt it. And he allowed one long index finger to curl at the knuckle against her jeans, until he'd looped it securely into her back, middle belt loop.

Fuck. His entire hand, minus the thumb, now rested BELOW friendly territory. He swallowed as this realisation hit him, and he searched her face frantically for signs of disapproval. But instead, he caught her gathering strength and control as she breathed deeply.

"I've got a few ideas... Mr. Weasley," she said, drawing out his name so that every. single. syllable. rolled over her tongue and lips in an intentionally heart stopping caress.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: **So I have a few more of these written already - I got up to chapter 7 before I even started posting here - but with my aforementioned limited computer access, I may not be able to update again until after the weekend. I hope you enjoy this next part, and thank you so SO much for the way-too-kind reviews thus far! Love you all! x_

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

Her first idea was clearly either to torture him or to render him completely useless. Either way, as her fingernails gently raked across his nipples, he flinched with sudden pleasure and had to stare unblinkingly down at her to determine if she was calculating every move intentionally. But she looked away and dropped her hands from his body entirely, and he was just beginning to suspect that she HADN'T realised exactly where her nails had roamed when she slipped her left arm low around his waist, mirroring his own left hand's position low on HER back.

So both of their trembling left hands were now... TOO low. Which was bloody perfect.

She sucked in a shaky breath, eyelashes fluttering nervously as she attempted a slow blink, and then suddenly, she tugged. Hard. On HIS back middle belt loop. Effectively locking them together, her right foot sliding across the rug between his two much larger, thinly socked feet.

He gasped in a breath, mind whirling, as her hipbones pressed very noticeably into his thighs.

"H-Hermiiione..." he breathed. "What are you-what... what..."

He shuddered and abandoned all further attempts at speech as he watched her blush.

"Okay?" she asked timidly, her eyes moving up from his chin to meet his eyes.

She was really asking him!

He nodded in slow motion.

She smiled nervously and nodded back.

"No undos then?" she asked.

"None."

His head drooped towards hers. At this proximity, they were both going to wind up with sore necks...

Proving that no scenario was too innocent to be twisted from neutral to fully arousing, his thoughts took a running leap to a not too distant future full of exchanged neck massages...

"Copy me?" she asked softly, and he puzzled down at her until he felt her release his belt loop and slip her hand ever so gently up under the back of his shirt, pausing as skin pulled away from cotton with a slightly sweaty attempt to cling.

His finger tightened significantly on her belt loop as her skin made delicate contact with his. But then she paused, looked deeply into his eyes, and he knew she needed approval to carry on.

Well, approval he could most certainly give her.

He slipped his own hand up under her shirt and she smiled, as if his actions had directly induced the tug of her lips. She somehow leaned in closer as his heart beat too rapidly. And as she finally slid her hand up further, she sighed and rested her cheek against his chest, hand making a swift journey up to stop halfway along his spine.

So it was his turn?

Copy her, copy her, he kept repeating inside his own head. His hand moved a quarter of an inch, his wrist ready to cramp at this strange angle, now that she was all the way against him, tight enough to simply be an extension of him...

It was just a back. Just... HERMIONE'S back... Just some skin HE'D NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Skin he'd dreamt of seeing, OCEANS of it floating through his threadbare orange cotton sheets.

His hand took its upward path much more seriously as she sighed against him. And soon, his fingers were not only trembling against that spot just between her shoulder blades, but he could also feel a tiny bit of her forehead rubbing side to side against the bit of skin that wasn't quite chest that peeked out from the top of his shirt.

She was... nuzzling him? !

He had no idea why this excited him, and certainly never knew that it could. It was like she was burrowing into him... Oh, but she was already there. Had been for some time. Years, surely.

And then he felt that intake of breath that happens pre-speech, and he held his own breath to listen solely to her next words.

"I love your freckles, Ron," she admitted into his chest, with such passionate enthusiasm that despite all the bits of his brain that said it was impossible to love so many of ANYTHING, he believed her. He actually BELIEVED her. "Can I say that?" she added, and he reveled in this new thing, something wild and unexplored forming solidly between them at half past two on a sweaty Sunday afternoon.

"Oh God..." he groaned. "Yeah, Hermione. You can say that."

"Mmmmm," she breathed. "Are they... everywhere?"

He almost choked on his own inhale.

"Maybe..." he said slowly, floored by how cheeky his own voice sounded.

Her body tensed against his, and he felt all sorts of things happening to his own body that he should have been embarrassed for her to possibly feel... particularly inside his jeans. Though he'd given her the opportunity to request an undo, he couldn't very well stop himself from accidentally showing her just how much he wanted to shag her... at least not as long as she remained ALL up against him like this...

She slipped her hand out of his shirt and he copied her, still playing her game. But she took a step back, and her arms dropped limply to her sides.

She bit her lip. He squeezed his eyes shut to await instructions.

"I'm sorry, Ron," she said timidly. "Is this too much?"

Was she really asking... too much? !

Well, he had his instructions now...

His eyes flew open.

"No!" he nearly shouted, not even bothering to cover for it.

But as she blushed an awkwardly bright colour, he began to question her enquiry. Perhaps, if she'd FELT how much he wanted her, she'd simply grown sorry for him, knowing things weren't going to go far enough to relieve his...

Right.

And to be completely honest, he'd never expected them to. Blimey, it was only today, and they'd only just kissed for the second time... He'd never set out with a desire to get them naked together and underneath his sheets before sunset...

In fact, given the slow burn rate of their not-quite-relationship thus far, he'd be thrilled to touch her still-bra-clad chest by the time he reached thirty.

And truthfully, if he could just be with her, just hold her or even just KNOW that she was connected to HIM, that if she ever uttered the rather underwhelming word 'boyfriend', she'd be... referring to HIM? !

Well, that was plenty. More than.

He suddenly felt himself smiling rather goofily down at her, and he noticed how shy and thoughtful she'd become as she watched him.

"Would it be okay if... if you went next?" she asked.

"What do you want me to do?" he rasped.

"Anything."

He wasn't going to bugger this up. He was going to make damn sure he understood...

"Be more specific."

She furrowed her eyebrows adorably.

"How can anyone be more specific than 'anything'? Anything, Ron. Just... anything."

His blood boiled beneath his skin.

"Are you sure you've thought of... everything?" he croaked.

"Yes."

He watched her fists clench, and had she pressed her legs closer together?

"Fuck..."

He felt irrationally tormented, like he knew what EVERYTHING meant much better than she did. But that LOOK in her eyes, the way even her rather chaotically sweet tendrils of hair seemed to glance shyly up at him...

"Promise me," he began, as a new world of everything glowed with a dawning horizon. And she nodded, even before he'd told her what she was promising. Bloody sodding hell, he loved her. "Promise me you'll 'undo' me if you need to."

She swallowed an audible chuckle, grinning in a way that bordered on mischievous.

"Oh, I can try," she sighed, and her hand found his wrist, squeezing lightly as his skin burned with ideas.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **I am literally running out the door the moment I submit this, and will be gone for a long weekend, but I had gotten this into a proper doc and decided what the hell, I'll post it superfast before skipping out of town. So I hope you all enjoy this next bit! Until next week..._

_Also, please, everyone. Please listen to **M83**'s new song "**Midnight City**". It has been endlessly stuck in my head, and my boyfriend joked this morning that because it's been so stuck in his head as well, the repetitive synth melody that runs through it has served as his mental alarm clock, randomly 'blasting' through his brain in half-consciousness in the mornings, hah... xx_

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

With limitless choices now laid out before him, he hadn't a sodding clue where to start...

So, seeing it as the most neutral option, he began by staring rather intently at her forehead, which was, given their thirteen inch height difference, the easiest bit of skin to stare at without moving. He felt the tip of his index finger touch a spot between her eyes before he knew what he was doing, and he watched her eyebrows lift before she leaned fractionally closer, pressing her forehead harder against his finger with the shifted weight.

Dragging up both a hot breath and a few extra ounces of courage, he slid his finger tantalizingly slowly down between her eyes, along the length of her nose. Her cheeks flushed as he paused before dipping off the end of her nose and approaching her lips...

She sucked in a breath and her perfectly rounded and moistened pink lips parted as his finger tugged the top one down with even the tiniest touch, slipping a bit too fast to the tiny opening she'd left to breathe irregularly through. His finger caught on her bottom lip and dragged it gently along as he continued his downward journey. Her rosy cheeks were perfectly puffy, bottom lip slightly swollen, he guessed, from kissing moments ago.

His heart stopped as her eyes found his for half a second before darting away again, and as he concentrated, he couldn't remember the last time he'd blinked. Even a blink's worth of this seemed too much to miss.

He was finally forced to unfreeze, allowing her bottom lip to pop back to its original position as he slipped his finger down to the little dip before her chin jutted out daintily. He guessed he'd reached some kind of goal, drawing a feather light path from top to bottom of her glowing face. And just as he was about to move on to another project, she tilted her head back an inch... then another... effectively moving his finger down for him, gliding down the curve of her chin to the ridiculously soft skin of her neck.

She let out the tiniest little squeak and her eyes fluttered shut.

He tried and failed to swallow properly.

Continuing HER chosen path, he forgot he'd ever planned to move on. He let up the tiniest bit of pressure, so he could almost feel his own fingerprint ridges rippling down the smoothest skin he'd ever come into contact with.

She breathed in shallow bursts, and his eyes were now within range of her chest... and the top button of her thin plaid shirt.

The top button... which was UNbuttoned.

His finger had finally reached the hollow bit of her where neck became sternum, and he could take no more.

He waylaid his hand from its current voyage towards so many secret things below, and placed the hand instead on top of her right shoulder, so very gently.

He sighed out his next breath as his thumb fit perfectly against the flow of her collarbone. He shifted his position on top of her shoulder.

And moved his thumb. Twice. In a tiny circle only he could see.

She gasped. No, really.

So with a sharp, determined breath, he ran his thumb down along the length of her collarbone, fingers easing south from her shoulder to rest mostly on the flat plains of almost-chest that he was approaching... until he arrived once again at her sternum, only this time, with much more skin connected. And he froze again, nearly petrified of her reaction, and heart beating incessantly with the need to keep going...

He looked up into her eyes, asking at least a million questions but only needing the answer to one. She was staring, unblinking, right back at him. The force of the wide eyed connection that had formed so unexpectedly between them, nearly knocked him off course. His thumb trembled against her hot skin.

"I dare you," she said firmly, and his lips parted in delighted surprise.

"Challenge accepted," he choked out, fingers spidering across her skin towards that damn cheeky top button of hers.

He gave the little bastard a smirk, repositioned his index finger several inches lower than he'd been before, and set a new downward path, igniting flesh as he descended. He entered the narrow V of her slightly opened shirt with butterflies churning uproariously in his stomach. And when, at last, he'd reached the end of opened and easily accessible bits, he angled his finger still further down, curling knuckles until he'd hooked his finger into the top of her shirt, resting securely against button number two.

"Ron..." she moaned.

And then she was clawing at him, hands back in his hair and tugging until his lips landed a few centimetres northeast of hers. But instead of waiting for him to adjust, she planted her bottom lip exactly where it was against his stubble and opened her mouth to capture his slightly off centre lips between her own.

Several heart attacks later, he registered that he was moaning loudly, that his tongue was swirling with hers again, and that his hand was still trapped between their bodies, clenched tightly against loose-stitched cotton. His other hand seemed to be stunned in midair, hovering behind her, fingers extended and tensed with pleasure. He finally found the means to position the inside of his forearm tightly against her spine, fingers caught in a trance somewhere inside her wild curls at the base of her skull.

Would every kiss they ever shared feel like this? He longed for the day when he'd have a catalogue of varieties from which to select. He imagined soft morning kisses, heated middle of the night snogs, welcome homes and goodnights... And if he paid attention, he could find each and every one of them buried in this one now, this one that could never end for all he cared, could take his life... and he'd die happily.

But it did end. If only to make room for the next, and the next yet to come. He could see them now, everywhere.

But he could also feel a new piece of material against his right index finger, and as he opened his eyes to gaze down at Hermione, realisation of what he was feeling hit him with wind taking force.

He looked down further still, before he could register that he maybe, possibly, shouldn't be so blatant. But for all she seemed to mind, he might as well have ripped every one of the buttons from her shirt and saved himself the agonizing build up to... whatever this was building up to.

Bra. Hermione's.

He was touching Hermione's bra!

He allowed every bit of weight that he could to sink directly down his arm, and his finger slid just THAT much further, under the centrepiece of whatever masterful bit of material she was wearing under her shirt and over her breasts.

That layer between hand shakes and shags. It somehow stood for everything, a world of bridges crossed successfully by the fact that he could FEEL softly swelling Hermione skin against the sides of his finger...

He looked up at her red face, but looked quickly down again when he saw that her eyes were closed in… could-that-be-bliss? !

He bit his lip way too hard and slowly focused on the way the front of his body felt, now so lightly against hers, now that her hands had dropped limply to his shoulders once more. And he found the crevice he'd been dazed with, eyes locking on... oh-fuck-lace...

"Wait-" he began slowly, speaking the word in much the same way he'd often swear, when someone was nearby who might overhear him and disapprove- "uhhhh... tellmeaboutthis? !"

Her eyes opened so slowly she might have been drugged. He caught her gaze with creased forehead... agony present in the extreme pleasure now coursing through his veins.

"T-tell you a-about... what?" she asked softly.

"Shit, what are you wearing?" he blurted, actually MOVING his finger around to get a better feel. She groaned and clasped his hand in her own to stop him.

"N-nothing," she stuttered, and he sensed a shy reserve in the way she avoided eye contact when he tried to flick his eyes up to hers again.

Opting to drop the subject for the moment, he released her shirt and twisted his hand so he was holding her hand between their chests, breathing thickly, wondering if he needed to calm down again... figuring it was both impossible and necessary to avoid having a stroke.

"I was just wondering," he began, delighted when she allowed her eyes to roam back towards his now that she'd surely sensed his teasing tone, "are we going to tackle snog each other every time? Not that I'm complaining..." He smirked at her.

She grinned, openly forgetting to be nervous.

"Maybe."

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb before she lowered their joined hands to her side, reaching for his other empty hand so they suddenly stood, chest to abdomen, all hands occupied with each other's.

"Also, you know what? Neither one of us has undone anything yet," he pointed out.

She licked her lips, and he felt another wave of desire gaining momentum, ready to crash down on him.

"Well, I can fix that," Hermione almost wheezed, and her hands dropped his.

Her swift fingers found the top of his jeans, on either side of one faded brass button.

She wasn't REALLY...

His inner voice turned incomprehensible as she fumbled to unsnap the button, somehow making even the way she blushed and bit her lip with embarrassed frustration quite possibly the sexiest thing he had ever seen.

So... she WAS! Really.

Task completed, she left her twitching hands to rest lightly against his abdomen, her eyes staring a hole through the main source of her accomplishment. He HAD to look down and see what she was seeing, to judge how much he needed to blush at what she'd uncovered.

But he had no time to make a proper survey. With a ragged shudder, she reached up lightning fast, grabbed a fistful of his shirt buttons, and tugged him forward as she nearly skipped backward. Her legs hit the couch, halting her own movement, but not his, and he crashed against her, toppling her to a seated position on the couch. He opened his mouth to shakily apologize, but when he saw a spark in her eyes like a firework floating upwards, and when he felt her hand snake up his shirt buttons to the collar and beyond, he realised he had absolutely nothing to apologize for. Her legs parted, and from the way he was hunched halfway over her, she could be hidden in his shadow.

Which was somehow completely arousing.

Fuck, he was discovering just how many things, when added together with Hermione, could equal the instantaneous need for either nudity or a cold shower.

He groaned and dropped to his knees between her legs, running his hands up her thighs as her hands found the sides of his neck, because sod it, no veela in the world could make him this turned on.

And there was also that bit about loving her more than his own life... but he'd get to that...


	5. Chapter 5

He swayed his hips forward by inches, sharp hipbones nearly cutting through the delicate, strained skin that sketched to accommodate them. The length of his thighs burned against the front of the couch as he angled his nose to cuddle closely next to hers as he crushed her lips again.

His hands slid further up, until his fingertips smashed against something solid, and with a short, sharp breath through his nose, he rested contentedly where he'd ended up. Her arms looped tightly around his neck, elbows bent, and as he tentatively slid one large hand around to flatten between her lower back and the couch cushion behind her, he felt her back arch away from the cushion altogether, aligning her breasts with his chest so the tips just barely brushed against him as she inhaled. He tried to tell himself he'd only imagined it, but as she moaned and it happened again, he was sure he'd felt her hardened nipples through all three articles of clothing that separated them.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if it was possible to die from this kind of strain, or if lingering here as the minutes ticked by was also lopping days off the end of his life, blood flowing with too much enthusiasm now as he held onto her.

He needed more. Did she?

They literally gulped air into their mouths as he pulled back an inch from her, as if emerging, at last, from the depths of a beautiful lake.

"You're driving me mental," he whisper-growled.

And, as if to prove that he did not yet know what being driven mental ACTUALLY felt like, she drifted her left foot up from the rug to slink on top of the back of his right calf.

His palm flattened completely against her still arched back.

But she resumed her torture momentarily, shimmying her heel up the back of his thigh as he leaned marginally inward, trapping her body completely between his hand and his chest. His hips shifted almost of their own will at this point against the firm top edge of the front of the couch, strangely at exactly the right height for such maneuvers.

As she ducked to kiss a spot behind his ear, trembling, her inner thighs rubbed against the elastic of his boxers, creating the most amazing friction. He was sure he'd have a denim burn later, but he'd be lying if he said he minded in the least. She was soon clutching fistfuls of the back of his shirt, exposing goosebumped flesh to the hot summer air of the Burrow's sitting room, releasing skin, inch by inch, from the prison of his clothing. But as he felt cotton against couch, he realised his zipper had slipped down of its own accord, jeans gradually releasing his boxer-clad arse as they inched south.

She noticed. And as she whispered his name into his ear, overwhelmed by his fingers suddenly tickling down the side of her neck, she dropped his bunched up shirt and slipped two fingers a centimetre beneath back boxer elastic.

Removing his lingering hand from her thigh, he wrapped one finger at a time around her upper arm as he suppressed what might have been an actual scream at this point.

As she lifted her head from his neck, shivering out each oddly intervalled breath, he pressed his hot forehead to hers, wisps of her hair frizzing around his face.

They both glanced down, at the exact same moment, taking in the sight of her chest heaving against his and her legs very nearly wrapped around his waist at this point.

And as he watched, her tiny hands released him to fish between them for the second button at the top of her shirt. He held his breath. Though she struggled for a moment, it came unfastened with a light pop, and he watched in what had to have been slow motion as her breasts pouted further out of her shirt, revealing almost blinding bits of lacy perfection resting atop each one.

Her hands moved down to button number three.

He tried to speak, but the noise that came out was more like a strangled howl, and instead of trying again, he covered her hands with his.

Her nose accidentally bumped his. A stray heel rubbed along his arse. And he stuttered back to the possibility of speech as she looked into his eyes, features blurring together from their proximity.

"Y-you d-dont get to undo... ALL the buttons we've got..." he rasped. "My turn."

She half-sighed, half-moaned to cover the distance between their lips again, planting a wet, warm kiss against his mouth, briefly, before tilting her head back enough to look trustingly into his eyes as she waited for his next move.

His long fingers brushed up the front of her as he angled his torso backwards enough to keep his hips in contact with the sofa while still creating a gap at their chests with which to work on this new project of unbuttoning three more buttons.

Three.

It seemed such a vast number, just then, as his fingers finally found the first one from where she'd left off, which just so happened to be positioned directly at the center of the fullest horizontal cross-section of Hermione. If he slid his hands either an inch left or an inch right, he was sure he would feel her obviously hardened nipples against one less layer. And then it struck him that in a few moments, he'd have removed layer number two as well, and he groaned as he managed to slip button three through its hole, watching with slack jaw as her breasts fully exhaled, like he'd uncorked a bottle.

"Holy fucking shit," he muttered.

Her thighs clenched painfully tight around him as he carefully memorized the cut of her bra. The lace bits he'd taken notice of twice already were more slight than he'd realised, only just barely skimming around the rims of each of the cups. It was so slight, in fact, that even though he'd been floored by the possibility of her actually understanding how sexy it was, he now wondered if she'd even suspected that upon seeing it, he'd very nearly come inside his own pants against a sofa edge.

Yeah, possibly not.

But even the modest white cotton that covered her milky flesh called his name like a prayer, and he made quick work of locating the next button, fingertips swishing down between her breasts as he tried to form appropriate swear words.

As he unbuttoned the second to last obstacle between Hermione inside of a shirt and Hermione very much OUTSIDE of one, he glanced back up at her flushed face, paying special attention to her lip between her teeth and her eyes mostly shut.

"Alright?" he asked her, as a formality.

She nodded fiercely and opened her eyes a bit.

"You?"

He laughed somewhat maniacally.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm bloody well alright. If you don't count the fact that my nervous system is frankly shot and I'm having to remind myself to breathe every few seconds to stay alive..."

She laughed delightfully then, running her fingers up under the sides of his shirt.

"I love you," she blurted, gasping the moment the words had escaped and clamping her lips shut as she yanked her hands back, clasping them firmly over her mouth.

His eyes rounded perfectly as he refused to blink, staring back into her own apologetic eyes.

"Say that again."

She shook her head against her hands, eyes watering.

"No, seriously," he said, seriously.

She closed her eyes shamefully and lowered her hands.

"I didn't mean to say that just THEN."

"But do you mean it, anyway?"

Her eyes flew open.

"Of course I...-" She sighed heavily at 'mistake' number two.

His grin rippled his cheeks and the corners of his eyes.

"Then say it again," he repeated around a ridiculously wide smile.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because once I've confirmed that I heard you correctly, I'm going to say it back."


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: **Just want to post a huge thank you to my good friend **maritera** for posting Chapter 5 for me yesterday! You are awesome! _

_This right here was the last of the original bits I'd written** - **I decided to combine chapters 6 and 7 because they were both terribly short. But I have written four more. So, you know..._

_Smut continues to get more smutty from here. Just so you stay warned ;)_

_Right! Onward._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

She smiled slowly, shyly, and with astounding disbelief.

"You... will?"

He nodded, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She sighed out years of fear and laughed lightly.

"I love you," rolled off her tongue with ease and something close to relief this time.

"Blimey..."

She raised an eyebrow as he grinned wider still.

"...and I love you. Have done for-" but he paused mid-sentence, questioning what he could say next. He didn't know which year had been the one, much less which day or month or season. "Forever?"

He shook his head with a half-shrug, still grinning, and she laughed lightly as her hands resumed their positions under his shirt, against his sides. Goosebumps broke out like an instant rash, covering his torso as he hitched a breath.

"I believe you've still got one more button left..." she whispered, and he blinked twice before finally understanding what the hell she was on about. And as if coming out of a Hermione induced coma, he looked down at her final shirt button, slipping his hands between their bodies again to unfasten it...

As the bottom edges of her shirt fell open, revealing her belly button, he couldn't resist circling it with his thumb before sliding both hands around her naked sides as he leaned in closer to her again, pressing his torso to hers as his lips kissed their way down from her right cheekbone to her mouth. Her arms were instantly back securely around his neck, and his arms found themselves, from the elbows up, now completely underneath the annoying piece of fabric that was still clinging onto her by the armholes.

She unattached her lips from his long enough to wiggle against him in an effort to slide her arms out of her shirt, and he choked on a moan as her thighs rubbed against his hips again. He pushed into her, leaning her towards the back couch cushions, but she stopped him, blushing, with a palm against his chest.

"Hermi-"

But then her tiny fingers were working HIS shirt buttons free from the top, like a spider spinning its web. When she'd suddenly made it all the way to the end, he paused to widen his eyes at the speed of her progress. Her own eyes were fixed in a trance on the newly exposed concave of his chest and stomach, soft ginger hairs curling against pale freckled flesh, blotches of his rosy blush echoing down from his ears towards his neck and collarbones.

She made a strangled sound in the back of her throat as her fingers feathered up and down his body. But she looked up then, into his curious eyes, as if to ask for permission to continue.

As if she couldn't believe she was allowed...

He had to be imagining...

"Why me?" she asked.

He was startled by the honesty in her question, and he knew that she really needed him to tell her. But his world was quickly making a 180 degree turn. Up until now, he'd never bothered much to consider the merits of his own lanky body, or his ruthless quipping... or any of his other rather sparse qualities or attributes. He'd spent so long feeling inadequate and had only just recently come to accept that that inadequacy really didn't matter so much. That he had so much to be thankful for - Harry and Hermione and his LIFE now they'd won.

After all, he was just Ron.

But... now what? Was he maybe supposed to almost believe that he was not only 'good enough', but that he was EXACTLY what she wanted? ! ...down to his hollow chest and the negative circumference of his waistline? His thousands of slightly bronzed freckles and hair approximately the same shade as a fresh batch of pumpkin juice?

And what? So she felt... lucky? To be with HIM? !

Lucky was Viktor fucking Krum asking a fifteen year old girl just starting to grow breasts to a sodding ball!

And now she wanted to know why... why HE'D chosen HER? !

"I... there are too many bloody reasons to list! I'd have no clue where to even start! What do you-"

"Ron!" she nearly sobbed, tugging his now-bare upper body against her own as she kissed him again. But he was tangled in shirt sleeves and had to breathe his way out of her passionate snog to rip his arms from the remaining useless fabric still attempting to cling to him.

"Sorry," he whispered, "that was getting in the way."

He positioned his nose in a now-familiar  
>place against the side of hers and resumed their previous activity with enthusiasm.<p>

Her back finally reached the couch cushions, their bodies at an angle so a bit of his weight was actually driving her deeper into the cushions. He felt wonderfully dizzy as she clawed at his back, dragging him up further on top of her as she spread her thighs even wider around his hips, and he felt one of his knees threatening to leave the rug. His right palm smoothed between them, over so much skin. And when his fingertips arrived at bra fabric, he hesitated only long enough for Hermione to break away from one kiss, groan delightedly, and eagerly kiss him again, before his fingers crawled up higher.

He. Was. Touching. Part. Of. Hermione's. Left. Breast.

Her teeth dragged across his bottom lip.

"Wait!"

He pushed back onto the balls of his feet, and his hands flew away from her as if they'd been scalded.

"What?" he demanded, as panic lodged in his throat.

She laughed suddenly, squinting with mirth.

"Oh, Ron, you didn't think I wanted you to stop altogether... did you?" she panted breathlessly.

He opened his mouth to defend himself, but she raced him and won.

"What time is it?"

Baffled, he stammered in her direction.

"Ron, we're in the middle of the sitting room at your parents' house. I don't particular fancy them walking in on us snogging half naked, do you?" She arched an eyebrow and he let out a tiny sigh of relief.

"What do you suggest?" he asked, suggestively. And his hands found her knees, walking index and middle fingers up her thighs.

"Well," she shivered, "I... I've always dreamt of... snogging in your bed."

"Bloody hell... no, you have not!" His hands seized against her still-parted upper thighs.

She shrugged, cheeks reddening as he gawked at her.

"That's fucking brilliant..."

Her grin spread shyly through the lingering newness of being so close to each for so long... with so little on.

"Want to...?" she trailed off.

Of course he did.

He clasped a hand around hers and awkwardly stood, jeans dropping to his thighs. He clutched them with his left fist to keep them semi-on, afraid to look down this time and risk seeing how much SHE could see, where jeans parted along an open zipper and threadbare cotton boxers poked through.

Sod it. He'd just been half covering her with his own body while his tongue was in her mouth and his fingertips were grazing dangerously close to a bra-coated nipple. Did it really matter now if she got a glimpse at his own painful arousal as she dragged him up numerous flights of stairs to snog horizontally in the bed where he'd first mumbled her name while wanking into a sock?

He bit his lip to keep from laughing. It was entirely the wrong reaction to Hermione's trembling hand in his own, both of their shirts collected and slung over her arm as her still-denim-clad arse gloriously blocked his view... as he followed her heels up to the first landing. But he couldn't help it. All sorts of manifestations of pure joy and intoxicating happiness were attempting to break free. He could almost cry if he thought about it, and how illogical was that? He recalled a time when he'd have called himself mental for such feelings. But today, they made all the sense in the world.

"I'd apparate us," Hermione said from in front of him as she paused in her ascent, "but I don't really trust myself right now..." and then she was climbing steadily again, leaving Ron to marvel behind her at the power to render her... unapparatable.

He grinned and squeezed her hand tighter as she turned along the second landing, glancing back over her shoulder to give him one of her own little grins... which made his next move absolutely necessary.

When she'd taken two steps up from the landing, leaving him two steps below, he dropped her hand, clenched a firm arm around her waist, and, bracing himself against the wall with his opposite forearm, twisted her around to face him, now inches taller than level with the top of his head.

"Ron!" she laughed.

He tugged her by the waist until she was pressed against him, and he didn't even have to dip for this particular kiss. His abandoned jeans slinked down his thighs to catch briefly at his knees before rippling into a puddle at his ankles.

"Couldn't wait..." he mumbled into her mouth as he repositioned his lips, altering the angle to try something new.

Her laughter echoed back into his throat as her fingers weaved through his hair.

"Almost... there..." she breathed as she pulled back an inch, sliding her feet backwards and up another step.

Grabbing onto the unfinished wood of the makeshift railing, Ron leaned dangerously forward, attempting to maintain contact with her. But he froze as he caught easy sight of her hands on her jeans button... her chest rising and falling dramatically as her eyes focused on his lower half.

She unbuttoned her jeans with only a modicum of hesitation, and only for the sake of tilting her head to the side by way of questioning his approval of her move. He nodded solidly and she smiled even more shyly than she had done so far all night... before she very, very slowly pulled down her jeans zipper. And at her position now three steps up from Ron, he found his eyes naturally falling straight forward to meet a pair of still-hardened nipples straining against her bra - WHY was she still wearing that? - and it therefore took next to no effort for him to find himself staring directly at the slowly exposed bits of Hermione knickers as she allowed the front of her jeans to fall open.

He registered approximately three words as he viewed, for the first time, what was probably going to be his favourite thing covered in what was undoubtedly his favourite colour...

Hermione's. Green. Knickers.

"My turn," he rasped as her hands ceased their movement, zipper completely undone. And Ron raised his two very large, very skinny, very nervous hands to Hermione's sides... where he tucked the top knuckles of his fingers inside the top hem of her jeans...

...and tugged.

She wiggled her hips to help him.

He choked on his next breath.

His knees rattled, his toes halted against the step above where he stood, and he caved, bending his knees as he pulled her jeans down, so that he was kneeling up the steps in front of her, eyes cascading down so much bare leg.

Without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her right thigh as the full weight of her jeans finally came to rest on the floor at her feet. She gasped at the contact of his lips against such a sensitive spot, and he wrapped a hand around each calf as he looked up her body to her face.

She stepped gracefully out of her jeans, forcing his hands to unwrap from around her legs, and he pulled himself upright again, if only to lock eyes with her as he kicked his own jeans much less gracefully off of his legs, picking them up as she did her own.

They blinked once. And then they were both bolting, at the same instant, up the stairs together, skidding along the last landing as Ron went ahead to open his door for her, ushering her inside with another grin. Ron rushed in after her, and as the door was still clicking shut again, Hermione was already removing her wand from her rumpled jeans and casting the required spells to keep them from being heard or walked in on.

He was finally able to see her properly, from head to toe, in that deceptively simple white bra and dark green cotton knickers.

As many moving lingerie ads as his brothers had teased him with in his youth, he had never, in a million years, seen or even imagined a combination more physically... and, blimey... MENTALLY attractive than what he was now staring at.

Live. And in his own bedroom.

And in love with him.


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: **Old work computer has been surprisingly good to me today! I'm out of town though until Tuesday or Wednesday, so I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I'll see you on the other side of a long weekend! :)_**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<br>**

They dropped piles of recently shed clothing and smashed into each other, hands against cheeks and lips meeting first. They moved, still joined at the mouths, in an awkward dance towards Ron's single bed. Hermione pulled her lips away as he continued to chase towards hers with his own, kissing nothing but air as he grinned.

"Socks," Hermione whisper-laughed, and he stroked his hand down her spine to rest just shy of her arse.

"You don't think my moth-eaten wool is sexy?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he lifted a foot to balance with a shuffle, wiggling his toes at her, big toe poking comically through a maroon Christmas present... possibly from as far back as fourth year.

His hand grazed the top elastic of the back of her knickers, and he lowered his foot to the ground, crushing her stomach to his hips as he pressed his hand more tightly to her back to steady himself.

She let out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a groan, and a bolt of pleasure coursed outward from somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach to his kneecaps.

"It's just..." she started, looking inexplicably nervous again, "if you're in your socks, then I won't haven't seen you... entirely... starkers... will I?"

He swallowed thickly.

But she laughed, that kind of adorably innocent laugh that somehow both clashed and melded flawlessly with this bizarrely perfect moment... surrounded by orange, Cannons players whizzing by them on three sides. She raised an eyebrow down at his feet, and he laughed soundly as he released her long enough to hop on one foot, then the other, as he tugged his nearly see-through socks from his large, bony feet. He flexed his toes comfortably against the hardwood, inches from the edge of his rug. The cool wood seemed to seep through his skin to his bones as he took half a step forward, realising with renewed joy that a full step wasn't actually possibly, considering how close he was to Hermione...

She reached up and tugged him playfully by the ears, eliciting a surprised sigh from him as they toppled onto his bed, limbs tangling as he scrambled to follow her up to the pillows, his body sliding between her legs unexpectedly.

And he suddenly felt all sorts of Hermione that he'd only been able to dream of until now. There was an abundance of warmth buried beneath her skin, and he was sucked down easily by the pull of it, his boxers contentedly brushing along her knickers and inner thighs...

"Ron..." she whispered shakily as his lips accidentally feathered across her neck.

"Mm..."

His muscles seized as her nails patterned their way down his sides. He brushed her hair back from her face and tried to remember not to collapse on top of her from utter bliss. There was something completely different about feeling her skin with his own torso rather than his timid fingertips. Bits of their chests and stomachs stuck together as his fingers twisted into her hair.

He realised, this close to her jaw and neck, that he'd neglected all sorts of skin, and his lips soon descended on her slightly flushed right earlobe. She clutched his shoulders tightly and pressed her nose into the dip of his collarbone. He wasn't sure why it felt so incredible, her face shoved breathlessly against his bare skin... but it absolutely did.

His room was stuffy, packed high at the top of the Burrow, especially tonight, but he managed a violent shiver as she pressed wet kisses to the curve of his neck, heading upward. He backward-copied her movements, kissing his way down her neck towards her shoulder... where he discovered a distinct lack of a bra strap. He pulled his head back only far enough to take inventory, her lips now very nearly buried in the hair behind his ear...

The offending strap had fallen from its designated spot to somewhere much lower and looser on her arm, completely below the curve of her shoulder. He was much too tempted not to loop his left index finger under the strap, and she dropped her head to the pillow as he did, eyes a bit wide and lips extra rosy and moist from kissing... But her hasty adjustment caused her thighs to slip higher, his body to slip lower, and he was forced to re-balance with his right elbow and forearm, sinking down into the pillow at a diagonal angle to the right of Hermione's head. His arm quaked under the weight and astronomically heightened nerves, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd reached down to place his left hand on Hermione's right hip... discovering, instantly, the little crease where her leg began, bent up around him. His thumb dropped into the crease, and his eyes fluttered shut.

When he was finally able to see clearly again, he clutched her hip easily in his palm, and lifted her slightly beneath him, trying to position her more comfortably, but 'more comfortably' proved to only be available in one very specific variety... one that required his previously mattress-buried erection to slide up directly between her legs.

She gasped sharply as he clamped his teeth together, stringing nonsensical swears from between them.

And then, he felt something new... again. And he was honestly beginning to question how much more of this he could take before he lowered the bar on how polite he'd been so far...

He felt something... wet.

"Oh, fuuuck," he groaned as he pressed his forehead against hers, clamping his eyes shut.

"What are you thinking about?" Hermione asked, stringing the words together nervously.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head half an inch. He touched the tip of his nose to hers, heart beating somewhere distinctly south, against the very centre of Hermione's soaked knickers.

"Whether or not you're going to regret this later," he panted, "if I just rip the rest of your clothes off and... and..."

They blushed scarlet, in unison.

"Ron," she said, very seriously, and with some difficulty as she was now squirming again beneath, her body rubbing against his and making his ears pound so he very nearly could not hear the rest of her words... "I would n-never regret that."

He blinked. It was impossible, he supposed, for him to misunderstand her.

He'd arrived at the point at which WANTING something and actually DOING it converged. He was stepping fully outside the safe in-between, when touching and kissing turned swiftly into that one other suddenly nameless thing - oh, he couldn't find the words now, any of them, to describe what it really meant... That thing, the one that would surely merge every pleasurable dream he'd ever had with his reality. He wondered, briefly and irrationally, if he'd actually believe it had happened, later. Because he was having trouble even believing that he was conscious NOW, as the possibility of THAT thing lingered within his grasp.

So it was true. She... wanted him as much as he wanted her! It wasn't the physical signs, completely, that convinced him. It was her voice, the tentative attempts to positively show him what she wanted...

And he was hit with the knowledge that this morning, he was wondering how to try bloody kissing her again, and by tomorrow, he would be on the other side of having made love to the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The heaviness and absolution of this acknowledgment rendered him not only speechless, but weightless, somehow, as if life had finally given him a true glimpse of happiness, and that it was his, if he'd only reach out and take it.

Laughing out a half sob, he kissed her, softness lingering behind the flames as her heel dug into the back of his thigh. Their lips clung as they separated, one millimetre at a time, until they were breathing into each other.

"Do you think," she whispered against his lips, "that you can try to go slowly, just for a while, for me? I want to feel everything, to remember every detail..."

"Absolutely," he breathed. "Oh my God..." he added, overwhelmed, heartbeat racing through every cell of his lanky body as he tilted his head and pressed his closed mouth to her neck.

He'd probably just agreed to his own personal torture, but he couldn't even bring himself to care.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: **I'm sorry this chapter is kind of short... I wanted to post something today before I had to rush off and this was what I'd originally marked as chapter 8... considered combining with chapter 9, but no time! Argh! I hope you all enjoy this and I'll try to update again tomorrow or Thursday! Hope everyone had a great weekend xx_

_Oh. Yes. Right. Things continue to get **smuttier**. Just, you know. This is probably **my most explicit story**. I've finished chapter 13 and... yeah. Right. Okay, onward. *blush* :D_

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><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

He allowed a tremor of nerves to pass through him from head to toe. Then, with determination and excitement, he kicked up one corner of his mouth and lifted his head an inch.

"Right," he said, "off with this," and he dipped his head again, to the bra strap that had slipped south, attaching his teeth to it and tugging, running his clamped teeth along it until he had to slide down her body again, his mouth at her armpit. She raised her chest automatically, towards his touch, and his eyelids fluttered down over glistening pupils.

"Sit up, Ron," she instructed, softly, and for half a second, before he could figure out the logistics of her request, he wondered if he'd done something wrong... though his brain was still screaming with the desire she'd professed already, to do exactly the same thing that he wanted to do.

He rolled to his right, off of her, and as he was scrambling to sit awkwardly in the space between her body and his wall, she sat up straight, legs flattening against the bed as she swept her completely out of order hair over her right shoulder... revealing her entire back, down to the edge of her knickers, where tiny adorable dimples marked the beginning of secret territory, that he had somehow gotten lucky enough to be granted entry to.

His lips parted in aroused shock as he felt his eyes glue themselves to this new expanse of skin, thin bra straps all that crossed its path.

And then, still holding her hair over her shoulder with her own gentle fingers, she turned to glance at him over her left shoulder. And she waited.

Until it was obvious he was lost in some sort of disbelieving trance. She smiled shyly.

"Do you want to..." she whispered, trailing off as she flicked her eyes down and to her left, indicating the clasp of her bra, mid-back.

"Do I..." he mumbled, finally dragging his eyes up her body to her face. He lifted a shaking hand to fluff through his hair. "Yeah..." he added scratchily, before clearing his throat and scooting against her, behind her, until she turned back around to face forward.

He felt her take in a preparatory breath as his left hand hovered above her left shoulder. close enough for her to sense it. And then, without pausing to think, he lowered his palm to her warm skin, thumb gliding along her perfectly smooth shoulder blade. As his hand dropped from shoulder to back, he aligned his index finger to the thin, glossy, ivory bra strap that was still in its proper place atop her shoulder. He closed his eyes feather light, concentrating on the combined feeling of silky skin and slightly rougher elastic coated in delicate fabric.

When he finally opened his eyes again, palm flat against her back now, he lowered his shaggy head to her shoulder, sealing his lips over curved bone. Her shiver was audible, and she floated backwards an inch, in his direction.

It was suddenly necessary to steady himself behind her, and he pressed his right palm flat into the mattress, inches from the right side of her arse.

He took a deep breath as his nose brushed against her left ear. She sighed softly and her back fell against his bare chest, trapping his hand between them awkwardly.

"Oi," he said gravelly, and he gave her back a gentle shove forward, smiling as she readjusted.

"Sorry," she mumbled, turning her head an inch right, ensuring he could no longer see her face.

He shook his head to indicate she had nothing to be sorry for, but by the time it occurred to him that she couldn't see him, he'd gotten lost in a seemingly endless plane of skin yet again. His eyes followed a random pattern, connecting two freckles, which mesmerized him momentarily. He'd not expected them to be there. But there they were, one atop her right shoulder blade and the other just above the horizontal bra strap he'd been tasked with unfastening...

He dropped his left hand from her back to the mattress and repositioned himself directly behind her now, so with bent knees, his legs angled along either side of her body.

Much better.

He lifted his right hand now to trace an invisible line from one freckle to the next with his index finger, feeling yet another of her wonderfully sharp inhales as he did so. And then he found himself where he needed to be, at a delightfully foreign looking variety of clasp...

He cleared his throat, preparing his first attempt.

Lifting both hands, hovering them behind her for a moment, he stretched his fingers before lowering his hands to the very centre of her back, knuckles against soft, creamy skin, thumbs and index fingers flipping the centre section of bra elastic over to get a better view of his appointed task.

He blinked at two inches of newly uncovered Hermione skin.

And then, he shifted his gaze to the tiny metal pieces hooked together against the strap held between his fingers.

He squinted down at them for a full ten seconds.

"Lost?" Hermione asked, voice soft but teasing. He smirked at her bra clasp.

"Nope," he said with conviction, and with a minuscule push here and a pull there, the snap came unhooked with a vague click. "Hah!" he shouted triumphantly as he removed his hands to watch two ends of formerly connected elastic droop lazily down Hermione's back.

"You're a genius..." Hermione muttered, voice still light and teasing, but an edge of nervousness buried beneath...

...and perhaps that little clue was what tipped Ron off to what he'd really done, drawing him with blinding force back from victorious to-

"Bloody hell..."

He swore again under his breath, not even comprehending his own voice, and then he watched, struck dumb, as Hermione's fingers climbed up her arms to slip both straps down completely. Nothing but glorious skin greeted him as she pushed the freed article of clothing to the floor and froze before him, hardly breathing.

He'd literally never felt this aroused before. Which was to be expected. But he hadn't actually known it was physically possible to have an erection this painful, and for this long, without either going mental or completely losing control. And he hadn't even seen her sodding breasts yet! Not to mention all the other impossibly perfect bits he had found himself with a private invitation to...

He needed to calm down, or he wasn't going to last anywhere close to long enough. But instead...

"Turn around," he heard himself say, somehow.

And finally, setting a pace slow enough that he might pass out from such an extended time without an inhale, she moved, left shoulder first, to face him.


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: **I haven't even had time to re-read this or proof it or anything, so I apologize if there are errors. Got another insane weekend coming up followed by an insane week so I'm going to try to update again tomorrow! Thanks for all of your amazing reviews and for sticking with the story!_

_**SMUT** continues :D_

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><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

She stopped halfway there, taunting him with a glimpse of a significant swell, just out of full view. But she glanced over her left shoulder, in his general direction, eyes lowered. Her hair finally fell halfway off her right shoulder to sway gorgeously across her back.

"I know you must know basically what to expect. We've known each other long enough, I'm sure you've got the idea," she began, speaking slightly too fast, a sure sign of either frustration or a severe case of overactive nerves. "But I don't want you to be surprised when... you know. Don't expect anything... spectacular."

His lips parted as he tried to think of what to say. Of course he knew her, and he probably knew, in a way, what she'd look like. But after years of surreptitiously studying the outline of her chest and arse through thick school robes and the occasional pair of modest jeans or thankfully tight top, he was also positive that if the chance ever occurred to see what was really underneath, to replace his hazy, cobbled together mental attempts at constructive visualisations, he'd be so sorely off from the perfection of reality, that he might never recover.

So, obviously, when he really considered it, he had no sodding idea what to expect. Because he couldn't possibly imagine it. Even in his most vividly erotic dreams and fantasies.

"In about five seconds, you'll see my reaction, and then you'll know you're wrong," he finally said, gruffly. "I'm about to make a bloody arse of myself."

She sighed shakily.

"Oh, this is embarrassing..." she whispered.

"You don't have to-" he started, quickly, but any additional words were stamped out as Hermione turned the rest of the way in one swift motion, to face him completely, eyes screwed shut.

He stammered on a long series of curse words as his left fist gripped his blanket and sheets tightly. She shifted her legs so she was sitting on her knees, between his still-bent legs, and even the smallest jostling of her torso from her adjustment caused her fucking perfect breasts to bounce lightly.

He swallowed a groan.

Her breasts were small, but certainly not non-existent. He could already imagine how they'd feel, filling his hands. Though, like all things when it came to Hermione, he knew how far off he'd really be, from how bleeding incredible they'd ACTUALLY feel, when he finally got the opportunity. With her eyes still sealed shut, he felt no need to be coy, gaping openly at the way her rosy nipples puckered out towards him, surrounded by gentle circles of slightly lighter pink. And what dropped his jaw that much further was the way each coin sized tip was outlined in yet another shade of pink, in a less defined path, wavering inconsistently before suddenly dropping to the light peach-milk of the rest of her breasts and chest.

For fucksake, HE had nipples. But hers... shit, hers were completely, utterly, absolutely different. He needed to touch them, to feel them with... well, with every sodding part of his own body, to be honest.

Scratch that.

He needed to feel every square INCH of her body with every inch of his own...

"Can't take much more of the silence, Ron," she squeaked edgily, eyes still clenched shut.

Lifting his elbows to rest on top of his still-bent knees, he leaned in several inches, heat radiating off of her against his torso.

"I told you I was going to make an arse of myself," Ron moaned, all sense of composure completely lost. "I can't think of a single bleeding word that even comes close to describing how fucking beautiful you are."

Her eyes popped open wide as her lips parted.

"You're making fun of me."

"Oh, absolutely not."

She blinked directly into his round, blue eyes.

"Want me to prove it?" he slurred.

She nodded once.

His heartbeat tripled as filthy thoughts blocked out any remaining decency and logic. Filthy thoughts he was fucking ALLOWED to act out.

"If I die from this," he said shakily, "it's a damn brilliant way to go," and he lifted his trembling hands to begin.

...and of course, when he finally placed them somewhere, he found them resting on top of Hermione's shoulders, squeezing lightly. He'd still managed to unnerve her further, and he felt her shudder beneath his touch.

He wondered how he'd ever manage to slide his hands an inch south, much less travel what had to be bloody MILES to reach her breasts. At the edges of his vision, even from his position practically hovering above her, if he tilted his head downward, just right, he could still see her breasts fully, tips upturned towards him, as if awaiting his next move, scrutinizing his performance.

But it seemed to make sense, in some nonsensical way, after all these years of the slowest possible build up of a relationship. It was only logical that crossing this one particular bridge would feel like wading through molasses. And if he was being perfectly honest, there was some level of sick enjoyment to be gained from the torture of being so totally aroused for such an extended period of time, maintaining momentum but holding back every instinct.

His hands slipped. No, actually SLIPPED accidentally. She gasped, eyes darting up to stare at his slanted ceiling. And he found himself an inch closer to his goal. He swallowed thickly, and was encouraged by the force of gravity to relinquish additional pressure in a relatively passive effort to move again.

It worked, and he was able, with much ragged breathing, to angle his hands outward, to glide down diagonally, finally skimming swollen flesh as his hands molded around her sides to finally rest at her ribs.

His jaw literally dropped as he actually witnessed her nipples straining to harden more, a nearly impossible task. And a heavy smattering of goosebumps broke out everywhere he could see.

He glanced up to watch her head tilt back another inch, eyes fluttering gracefully shut.

Encouraged, he willed his hands to move inward, simultaneously, index fingers lifting with the curve of each breast first, followed by middle fingers, ring fingers...

The length of his thumbs rested beneath, supporting the light weight of each breast.

His fingers quaked as he breathed in sharply through his mouth. And, at last, he lifted both hands to feather their way up, until, finally, the crux of thumbs and index fingers brushed over diamond hard nipples.

"Oh fuck."

His head drooped towards her upturned chin as she gasped out a moan.

He slipped his hands back up to the flat plane of her chest, where her skeleton was just buried under creamy skin. And then, much bolder now but no less shivery, he dragged his hands down again, repeating his initial motion, but backwards. She bit down on her lip rather forcefully, and he felt her push her breasts up just a bit further into his hands, probably such a slight, automatic response that she hadn't even noticed she'd done it.

He closed his eyes for half a second, eyes rolling behind flickering lids, and he brushed his hands outward again, to align the pads of his thumbs with her nipples as he trailed back up his path. His thumbs pushed upward against impossibly hardened flesh, and he opened his eyes again to watch his freckles dancing over her flushed, but freckle-free, skin.

Her chest heaved and her lips parted.

"Okay?" he rasped, barely audible.

She tilted her face back down, opening her eyes to meet his as her hot forehead pressed against his. He watched a blush trickle from her cheeks to her neck.

"Yes."

His thumbs brushed two strokes, back and forth, across her nipples as she gasped in two tiny, throaty breaths of air.

"Hermione," he croaked, "you...you realize I have no fucking clue what I'm doing, yeah?"

A tiny smile began to slowly emerge as she pulled her head back an inch from his to look into his eyes.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't," she whispered. "But... you're doing... brilliantly."

He sighed out a bit of overwhelmed excitement, and she leaned in to kiss him softly. From this angle, his wrists ached from the strain of trying to properly access her chest while bumping his nose against hers to snog decently. It was like making a choice between being only mildly effective at one thing or the other.

Which was not on.

He separated from her kiss, removed his hands from her chest, and retrieved his legs from their positions still on either side of Hermione. He sat back on his arse, stretched both legs straight between her and the edge of the bed. And, just as she was starting to look confused and slightly disappointed, he cupped her face with his right hand, left palm flat against the mattress to steady his body, and he glued his lips to hers again, slowly lowering his hand to her neck, shoulder... finally sinking his whole upper body back completely flat onto his pillow, dragging her down on top of him.

Her hips burned, grinding down against his erection as she positioned her body on top of his. He groaned his lips away from hers and reached down between them to adjust himself, stabs of almost-pain shooting through him as she squirmed. His hand between their hips caused her to gasp in more sharply than she had yet, and his eyes flicked to hers as he realised, with his fingers working against his boxer material, his knuckles were forced up just between her legs.

Her knickers were soaked.

Her stomach convulsed against his.

"Oh, God..." she groaned. "Don't move." And she slid her open mouth down his jaw, the curve of his neck... effectively grinding his knuckles up through the centre of her sensitive, swollen flesh.

His hand seized, and he focused every effort on not moving any part of his body in the slightest, meeting her demand.

Her lips slid lower, and his knuckles dug into her stomach, below her belly button. And before he knew what she was doing, her mouth had closed around his tingling left nipple. She sucked, hard.

"Hermiiiione... fuckinghell!"

And she dragged her lips back up again, teeth scratching across his nipple as she did so, his knuckles catching on her knickers and tugging them down so he suddenly found his own skin trekking through her curls.

She bit down as her lips reached his jaw, harder than she probably knew she was, moaning out a high pitched squeak.

"Your turn," Ron growled, suddenly unable to withstand a another moment underneath her, and with strong arms flying around her, he flipped them, trapping her body beneath his own as she gasped, shocked.

He sure as fuck hoped he was still allowed to 'copy her'...


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

His right leg sank between both of hers, knee against the mattress and her right hipbone digging into his lower stomach. He attached his lips, without preamble, to her jaw, working his way down the path she'd taken across his own skin moments earlier. He arrived south of her left collarbone, chin between her breasts, cheek just grazing the swelling edge of the left one...

"Ohhh shiiiit," he mumbled into her skin as the strong fingers of his left hand closed tightly around her right arm. He could feel her heart beating wildly against his face. And then he went for it...

Tilting his head right, his long nose dragged upward across her left nipple and his hands shook furiously as he tried to keep a considerable portion of his weight from driving her suffocatingly into the mattress.

And then, at last, he parted his lips in preparation, and flicked his tongue out from between them to sizzle against the softest flesh on the planet... he was sure it was. His lips opened hungrily against the side of her breast, tip of his nose still rubbing against her nipple as he sucked a bit too hard. But she merely choked out a moan, arching her back away from the mattress.

And so, shifting his body to his right, left leg now taking its turn between both of Hermione's, he dragged his open mouth up an inch, upper lip tingling with excitement as it passed over the hardened peak of her breast, nipple finally slipping between his teeth.

She writhed underneath him, gasping as her right knee bent high, foot lifting off the mattress to tease the back of his left thigh.

He made a series of nonsense sounds against her breast before sealing his lips securely around the tip and sucking more gently than before... more cautiously than when he'd began, an inch away, and where he now realised he'd most likely left a mark.

His tongue flicked over her goosebump encased nipple, and his toes curled tightly as his left hand relinquished its rather firm hold around her right arm... only to slide across rising skin, palm flat and fingers lifted with over extension, towards her exposed right breast. His thumb and index finger located and rolled around her right nipple twice before she shouted his name, gripping his hair with a fierce right fist.

She seemed to be stringing together tiny high-pitched words, some of which were most certainly his name yet again, arousing him still fucking further with the way she seemed to be SWEARING out the three letter word.

He suddenly increased the pressure and suction of lips around her left breast, squeezing the right with his overwhelmed left hand.

"Ohhh bloody-" Hermione breathed, cutting herself off before she choked on her own words, slamming her hand from its former position buried in his thick hair to land with great force against the mattress, gripping and grabbing at the blankets and sheets beneath them.

Her right leg squeezed further up his body, trapping him against bare thigh, and her left leg found its way out from under him, positioning him high between her parted legs. He sucked his lips away from her now very swollen nipple, staring in awe down at it as it glistened from his greedy snogging.

And he watched, delighted, as she arched her back still further, pushing her chest towards his gaping face, as if she craved his touch as much as he craved giving it to her.

"As you wish," he muttered, smoothing his left hand up from breast to shoulder to replace his fingers with his tongue and teeth and lips, making a thorough attempt to match his previous work on the other side. And slowly, he sucked as he lifted his head, raking teeth over a desperate combination of solid nipple and the delicate silk of surrounding tissue.

"Oh Godddd..." she cried, tossing her head against his feather pillow. He grinned against her nipple as he slipped his lips slowly around it again.

When he finally pulled away from her chest, she was panting raggedly, eyes wild and full of desire. Feathers had been freed from the confines of his pillow, surely from her forceful head motions of a moment early. A few still drifted in the air above her. He'd never seen her hair so out of control, spread every possible way against his pillow and billowing out around her face and scarlet cheeks. And at least a couple of stray feathers now clung to her wild curls at random.

"Fuck, I love you," he said gruffly as he attacked the side of her neck with open mouthed kisses, working his way up behind her ear as her thighs clenched around him. Her breasts, still wet from his onslaught moments earlier, squished against the hard, hollow planes of his chest, and he held a lengthy breath as he focused on each sensation.

"Oh, Ron, I love you, too..." she sighed through shivers, following her words up with a nasally squeak as his erection once again dragged up between her legs. He froze, lips against her skull, just behind her right ear. And, scratching her nails down his sides, she arched her hips up, rubbing the drenched centre of her knickers across his boxer covered erection.

"Ohbloodyfuck..." he strung out, clenching muscles as veins throbbed and ears pounded with the highly accelerated beat of his heart.

"Too many clothes..." Hermione slurred.

He couldn't have agreed more.

Her right big toe worked its way under the elastic of his boxers, just above his arse.

He wanted her so badly that it physically hurt, but how was he supposed to be impressive so close to already losing it?

"I'm not prepared for this..." he sighed.

He tucked his head down, leaning over her body so his shaggy hair tickled her stomach, and from his upside down position, he found himself blinking right down her lower body, legs extending and bending up beautifully from those tight green knickers she was still wearing.

"What do you mean?" she asked, entirely too nervously.

His whipped his head up, hair flopping back almost comically.

"Just, you know, that I'm... not going to be very cooool," he drawled with a reassuring half-smile to ease her away from the edge of her own apprehension.

He could sense it now, how quickly she feared she'd done something wrong, not lived up to some expectations he could never fathom, or began to worry he wanted less when he really wanted so much more.

"And I'm afraid it's probably going to be over in a seriously embarrassing amount of time..." he added, trailing off.

Her timid expression turned to a gentle smile, and she sucked the edge of her bottom lip into her mouth. He raised his eyebrows, smiling wider.

"See, you've got to stop doing things like THAT if you're interested in more than about two seconds."

She released her lip, looking mildly surprised, before she raised her own eyebrows and dropped her arms and legs flat to the bed.

"Better?" she teased.

But he felt oddly cold with the lack of her body wrapped around his, though before she'd been raising his possible body temperature by infinity, he'd have been complaining of the thick heat of a July night.

Instead...

"No," he said, simply. Because it certainly wasn't better this way. Far from it.

"Seems you can't make up your mind," she said playfully, poking his sides before walking her fingers down to the hem of his boxers, searching for his eyes.

"Ah," he said scratchily. "Okay, maybe just... stay there, actually."

She furrowed her eyebrows, puzzled, but he gave her a nervous smirk before drawing his body down along hers, wiping the confusion from her face, to be replaced by blissful eyelid fluttering.

His eyes landed on her belly button.

Shit.

He was very, very far down...

Inches remained.

He planted his knees between hers and lifted his head, finally rolling his back to sit up and blink down at her, hands clutching her bare thighs, still stretched straight down on either side of him.

He lifted his left hand from her thigh to grip her right ankle instead, lifting her leg and bending her knee to shuffle it in front of his body to join its partner on his right side, closing her legs completely. His fingers crawled back up her legs, body leaning over her lower half, until he'd crossed up over the sides of knicker fabric to rest his fingertips at her hipbones.

She was wearing one fucking piece of clothing. Only one. And so, there was nothing left to do, but THAT... what he'd come down here for.

He looked up, caught her eyes, and held on.

"Ready?" he asked, and she nodded against his pillow.


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N:** Thank you soooo much to **shocolate** for helping me post this! Wouldn't have happened for probably a week without you :)_

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><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

With his eyes still locked on hers, he slipped the tips of his fingers just barely beneath the top edge of her knickers.

He could tell she was holding her breath.  
>But he had no choice but to look down, to watch what his own hands were doing. Green cotton slipped an inch lower. A few wild stray curls emerged.<p>

He shook his head furiously, like a dog coming out of a bath.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked quietly.

"Yeah, yeah," he panted, staring a hole through her right kneecap. "Fine."

And then suddenly, in the breathy almost-silence, he had a brilliant idea.

"Hey, I've just thought of something," he said to her shin.

"What?" she asked, concerned.

"Not a bad thing," he said, finally lifting his eyes back to hers. "Just... well, I don't know how much you know about a bloke's uh..." He made a few extremely vague gestures with his nose.

"Probably a whole lot more than you realise," she stated simply.

Yep. This was a brilliant idea... that he had yet to get to... but had better bleeding get to NOW if he wanted to make it work at all.

Words were surely failing him. Hermione... knew THINGS.

"How... the hell..."

"Ron," she said, actually sitting up on her elbows. And amazing, incredible FUCKING THINGS were happening to her breasts. "I read, you know," she concluded, nipples still so damn hard and red and-

He leapt off the bed in one fluid cat-like movement.

"Where-" she started, eyes wide.

"Do you trust me?" he asked her very seriously.

"Of course I do, but-"

"Then give me just a minute," he breathed, fists clenched at his sides as he waited for her to allow it.

"Okay," she said, still baffled.

"I'm going to go out there-" he pointed towards his closed bedroom door "-and think of something completely unappealing," he explained, "and if that doesn't work, then... you know, I'll fix it so it'll be better for you."

"Fix-" she started, but she quickly clamped her mouth shut. Her blush so obviously signified her understanding of the plan. And he was impossibly thankful for not having to be specific.

"Okay, here goes," he said, bending to retrieve his wand from the growing pile of discarded clothing. He reached for the doorknob-

"Ron, wait," she cut in, sitting all the way up and searching for her wand, finally locating it, and undoing her spells from earlier with a few short flicks.

"Ah, cheers," he said, resuming his exit-

"What time is it?" she whispered, and he froze again as she turned her head to find his bedside alarm clock. "Ah. It's okay. No one should be home yet."

He nodded once, opened the door with a yank, and slid out onto the landing. He pulled the door shut again with a click and took two steps to stand in the centre of the landing, neck bent to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.

The Burrow was silent and growing darker. He swallowed, ready to begin...

He called forth millions of disgusting things, hideous things, annoying things... He thought about being trapped in ice water, what it might feel like. He considered the merits of thick bottomed cauldrons.

But a persistent chanting echoed just below everything else, one that reminded him exactly who was in the next room, looking far too brilliant, hardly clothed...

"Shit."

He paced rapidly across the thin rug atop the landing.

"Shit, shit, shit."

Well, it was a nice attempt. Noble.

But, now he was down to one option. Might as well go for it.

So, with an echoing crack, he disapparated, reappearing in the dark, cramped loo several floors below. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror and closed his eyes.

All he saw was Hermione.

Well, this would be sodding easy.

It took approximately eight seconds for him to grip his pulsing erection in a tight right fist, slide his hand up and back down, and moan out her name... and then it was done.

Sniffing, he cleaned up and bounced on his heels, shaking out his arms and legs, preparing to go back to heaven.

And then, with a twist, he disapparated directly into his bedroom. Hermione was standing inches from where he'd landed, wearing one of his old t-shirts. She gasped at his sudden reappearance.

"Ron!"

"Sorry," he said, taking half a step back from her. She shook her head.

"I was just coming to find you," she said slowly.

So that explained the t-shirt. Which looked far too effing sexy on her-

"I was thinking..." She stared down at the floor, eyes fixed on her own bare foot as she nervously toed one of Ron's wool socks. "I... I mean, if it's okay... what if I... watched you?"

After several seconds of holding his breath, she cautiously lifted her face to look up at him.

"Well, that's fucking hot," he said hoarsely, "and I'd take you up on that, but... yeah-" he cleared his throat "-already done."

"That fast?" she teased, eyebrows leaping up high.

"Oi! I warned you! S'why I left, innit? Now you get twelve seconds instead of two." He grinned cheekily down at her, and tugged the bottom hem of his shirt... that SHE was wearing.

She smirked up at him, cheeks a brilliant shade of rose.

"Well, where were we?" she asked, voice a note deeper than usual.

"Mm, you weren't wearing THIS," he said, tugging the shirt again.

She lifted her arms above her head and waited. He blinked at her... before grinning deviously down at her and oozing closer, slipping his hands up inside the shirt to rest against her bare sides.

She shivered, arms still held high in the air.

Very, very slowly, he slid his hands up her sides, painting her skin a light flushed pink with his touch. And his shirt lifted off her body as it caught on his wrists, revealing her hips, stomach, ribs one by one...

His thumbs grazed the bottoms of her breasts before he could see them, and he groaned somewhere in the very back of his throat as he abandoned his teasing to grab fistfuls of the shirt and gather it enough to rip it up over her head and arms, heartbeat accelerating over again as he stood chest to chin with an almost completely naked Hermione.

She lowered her arms, heaving thick breaths as he tossed the useless shirt to the rug, and they moved towards each other at the same moment. Hermione tossed her arms up around his neck, feet leaving the ground as her lips crushed his, breasts flattening against his soft ginger chest hairs. And as he angled his spine back to accommodate the extra weight, his hands reached for the most accessible (and probably most sensible, yes) place they could... to grip her knicker-clad arse, lifting as her legs literally climbed up his to wrap around his waist as he twisted his body right...

Yeah.

He was squeezing Hermione's arse.

And it felt fucking fantastic, and way too soft, and perfectly shaped for the curve of his palms and long fingers... tips of which were now quite comfortably situated right at the centre...

He needed to be horizontal. Immediately.

With a half-calculated movement, he bent his right knee, pressing it into the foot of his mattress, and with a topple, he dropped them onto the bed, Hermione's back first. Her 'oompf' puffed back into his throat as his lips parted and angled against hers. Slipping his hands out from between her arse and the mattress, he pressed his palms down to climb on hands and knees towards the head of the bed, Hermione wiggling underneath him to maintain mouth contact as they moved.

His blanket and sheets were now a disastrous, tangled mess beneath them, and as Hermione's head finally reached his pillow and he sank down into her, he felt surrounded by his cool linens and her burning limbs, legs locking around his waist and forcing erection number two against those damn knickers again...

"Right," he said as he dragged his lips an inch away from hers.

And he slid his open mouth down her jaw, neck, between her breasts, licking his way to her belly button as she writhed gently under him, pressing appropriate parts up against him. And finally, he'd reached his goal, and he sat up on his knees again, shaking hair out of his eyes as he closed her legs on his right again to set to work. He took a deep breath... and dipped his fingers beneath the elastic at her waist. She hummed out a sigh as her lips curled beautifully, waiting.

He grinned back, and tugged.

The triangle of curls he was slowly uncovering matched both the colour and chaos of her other hair, and he was oddly delighted by this discovery... most definitely because a long standing suspicion (and hope) had been blindingly confirmed.

She was breathing way too fast as he gaped down at her, agony in the speed with which he was forced to move, watching with awe as her knickers attempted to cling to her, quite thoroughly drenched...

She lifted her arse to help him, and his stomach flipped forcefully.

He managed, with Hermione shifting her legs now, to get the damn things completely off of her, and he held them in his right hand, looking dazed.

There. Was. A. Naked. Girl. In. His. Bed.

No. That wasn't quite good enough.

The naked girl... in his bed... was...

HERMIONE.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: **Whew! It feels like a lifetime ago when I wrote some of this! This one's quite short, sorry... Forgive typos, if you find any, and feel free to alert me to them :) Getting near the end of this ridiculously drawn out foreplay, I promise! Hope you all enjoy this, and once again, thanks so very much to **shocolate** for magicing this onto the internet!_

_Oh. And as always, **napchic**, I love you. Thank you for putting up with tidal waves of smut pouring into your inbox, and for The Best Reviews Ever after each chapter. You are super legit!classy :D  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

He closed his eyes.

And opened them again.

And she was still there. Blushing fiercely, shivering lightly, and averting her eyes from his.

This was... real.

"I don't know what to say," he said. "You're so... so perfect."

She found his eyes, blinking against tears. And why did she seem so surprised?

"No, t-that's y-you," she whispered, eyes raking slowly down from his stubble to his abdomen. "You've gotten us c-confused."

He shook his head slowly, smiling gently down at her gorgeous face, her wide glowing eyes, the rounded tip of her nose...

He still couldn't understand what he saw so very differently than she did. Of course she was perfect. Had been since day one. And he'd not been aware of it at first, no, but she'd been perfect... for him. And it must be some kind of astronomical luck to be in his shoes, to actually be with the person who fits with you like a second skin or the other half of something that had once been broken in two.

His fingers played absentmindedly with the jutting bones of her ankles, and then, as she squirmed away from his touch, he cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

"Ticklish?" he asked slyly.

"You know that already," she huffed, rolling her eyes.

He supposed that he did. And something about knowing so much about her, knowing her SOUL even, made him ecstatically lightheaded.

"Okay." He cleared his throat. "But there are things I don't know, aren't there." He watched his own fingers crawl up her impeccably smooth legs. "So..."

He paused at her knees, but without warning, she sucked in a heavy breath and bent her right knee all the way up... before rotating it outward, separating her legs, and sliding her toes up HIS right knee.

He closed his eyes briefly to swear under his breath as his left hand fell slack to rest halfway down her inner thigh.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, voice cracking and strained.

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth nervously and caught his eyes, giving the tiniest shrug. And so, stealing himself for his next move, he clenched the muscles of his right forearm, and slid forward on his knees, her foot dropping to the mattress on his left. He lifted his overwhelmed hand, and hovered it above her abdomen... before dropping three fingertips to rest amidst wild curls. He watched her thighs clench in preparation.

His hair fell around his ears and cheeks as he ignited a path downward with his index finger. He pushed the tip through wet curls, trying to stop his eyes from glazing out of focus from pleasure, and as she bent her knees higher still, he felt that perfect spot where red hot flesh engulfed him, finger sliding easily towards an opening.

"Fuckfuckfuck-"

He couldn't move. Yet he must. Or he'd die here, he was sure of it.

"Go on... if you like," Hermione whispered distantly, timidly.

"If I... if I LIKE?" He swallowed as his knees ground into the mattress, shaking.

He heard a tiny sigh from her direction, almost frustrated, and he watched as her toes flexed off the mattress.

"Ohsodit..." and he pushed his finger into her, so, so slowly.

"OhMyGod!" she cried, balling up his sheet in her right fist and clenching her eyes tightly shut.

"In a good way?" he choked, unable to even see the first knuckle of his finger anymore. He was surely going to pass out from pleasure...

"YesYes," she gasped.

No, this was too good. This was so good it was going to be very, very bad. He'd already left the room once for a wank. He couldn't go again, surely...

"Fuck, Hermione," he breathed, as his finger made its own decision and slid to the second knuckle, much too hot and wet and tightly squeezed... and her toes were surely cramping, flexing so hard.

Bending further over her, he flattened his left palm against her quivering stomach, lowering his head as he slid his finger the rest of the way inside of her, blinking at his wrinkled blanket beneath her heels.

"Ron! Feels amaaaazing..."

He finally dragged his eyes back up to what he was actually doing.

Actually!

"Really?" he whispered, awed.

"Yessss..." she gasped.

"Oh," he choked out again, at a complete loss for words. And, knowing he had little time to spare before he'd be done for again, he dragged his finger back out of her, watching with wide, unblinking eyes as she twitched, head tilted so far back into his pillow, cheeks and lips a deep red.

He raised his hand and stared at it, as if he could not believe it belonged to him, that it was attached to HIS body, controlled by HIS brain... and that his own bony index finger was now glistening and wet...

"OhGoddd," he slurred, knowing he had no power to resist tasting her, on his own skin. He placed the tip of his finger to the tip of his tongue, then slid the rest of his finger along, getting a very thorough taste... of the most amazing thing ever.

Sod Honeydukes.

"Ron! What are you-" she started, sitting up on her elbows, stray hairs plastered to the sides of her face.

"M'sorry," he sighed, eyes fluttering closed as he lowered his trembling hand to the mattress, palm down. "Fuck, had to find out..." he trailed off.

"What's it like?" she asked so very softly. "To you, I mean?"

His eyes popped open.

"What do you mean, 'to me'?"

She couldn't mean-

Her blush intensified, if that was indeed possible.

"Well," she began, way too flustered, as she dropped her back down to the bed again, staring up at the ceiling, "of course I'VE tasted it. Had to, really." She closed her eyes and shrugged against his pillow. "To find out," she explained. "Like you did, see."

His heart was not beating. No, it had stopped. Really. And he was dead and this was what his perfect afterlife was like. Or death was merely the best dream OF his life, just stretched out for all eternity.

Because there was no way. None.

No way Hermione had just said what Hermione had just said.

But she had. Hadn't she.

She. Had.

He suddenly recalled every swear word he'd ever learned and began mentally stringing them together until something emerged-

"Bloody fucking goddamn hell."

He watched her grin spread so wide her teeth began to show, but her eyes remained closed.

"If we don't... get to this... right now... I might have to-"

"Ron, come here."

He obeyed, without pause, drifting his body down on top of hers. Her fingers dug under the elastic of his boxers and he helped her speed up the process immensely, shoving them down his thighs, kicking them to his ankles and off onto the floor as her legs spread wider to accommodate his position between them again.

"You know this is probably going to hurt you?" he asked, ashamed to even have to admit what he'd guessed. She opened her eyes and looked deeply back into his.

"I'm sure it will," she said, no trace of sadness hidden in the happy anticipation overly present in her voice, "but I NEED it. Does that make sense?"

He tried to make it make sense...

"I don't know," he laughed instead, dropping his lips to her right earlobe to suck gently.

"Ohhh, Ron," she cried, "pleeeease. Now."

"You've convinced me," he groaned, gently biting the tender flesh of her jaw.


	13. Chapter 13

Ron twisted an excessively curly tendril of Hermione's hair around his left index finger and braced his right forearm against his pillow, to the right of her head. She shifted and his now boxerless erection slid between her legs again... to meet the warmest, most enticingly wet spot-

She shuddered out a moan as her nails dug into his right bicep.

At lightning speed, he mentally ticked off a theoretical pre-shag to do list, a half-formed, never tested, hazily conceived list that ended in a question mark, as he realized he'd possibly missed one very important thing...

"Hang on-" he began, but Hermione shook her head gently.

"If you're going to ask about protection," she said, near a whisper, "I've taken care of it."

He blinked, not just because she'd clearly read his mind...

"You have?"

She nodded.

"How?"

"I took a potion, while you were out, you know... fixing yourself." She smirked at him and he grinned sheepishly back.

"Okay, but where'd you get it from?" he puzzled. "And don't say Harry!" he added hastily, disgusted by the sudden thought of his little sister lying this way underneath his best friend.

Well, there. That set his arousal back by a few notches...

She giggled and shook her head.

Nevermind. As she smiled, his desire immediately rocketed back up to that impossible level at which he'd been lingering...

"I got it from Madame Pomfrey," she said shyly, "the morning after the war ended, just before we left Hogwarts to come here."

His lips parted slowly as he stared at her.

"You... you..." he stammered, unable to come up with any real sentences or follow up questions.

He felt sure that this new piece of information meant something important, but his brain was too turned on and foggy to comprehend it. So he slipped his swollen lips between hers instead, collapsing the side of his nose against hers as she melted deeper into the mattress. They sighed in unison, and he managed, through the haze, to shift his weight to his left forearm, index finger still wound tightly into Hermione's hair. Right arm now free, he separated his lips from hers for long enough to open his eyes and stare back into hers, chests constricting against each other as he slid his right hand down between them, thumb brushing across her nipple as he went, eliciting a surprised happy moan from her as his other hand clenched even tighter into her hair.

"Ron," she begged.

"Okay," he grinned.

And his hand moved further to guide his movements as she helped with her hips, until suddenly, wet and warm turned to burning and so-fucking-tight...

"...fuuuck."

She gasped, and he felt her stomach concave away from his as she sucked in a breath.

"Should I start counting now?" she whispered, and it took him a confused moment to understand her joke.

When he laughed, all sorts of things moved against each other, and he tried to stop, clamping his eyes shut as she gripped his arm harder still.

"Damn, sorry," he said through a final chuckle, body vibrating against her.

"Woah..." she moaned at the unexpected movement, and he felt her thighs clench around him. He slipped an inch further into her and shuddered violently.

"OhMyGod!"

Against friction, he had to keep moving. In all the times he'd imagined how this would feel, he'd never come anywhere remotely close to how incredible it actually was. He literally felt himself grow instantly addicted, as if all other desires and needs not only paled in comparison but simply disappeared altogether.

He could never replicate this outside of her, knowing that no attempts he could have made would have been worth trying.

Dropping his weight painfully slowly, her warmth surrounded him by another inch and she clenched her eyes shut, face creasing with pain.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he mumbled, freezing all motion. "Am I hurting you? What should I be doing?"

He felt overwhelmingly dizzy, confused by absolutely conflicting things... the best bleeding feeling of his life and his need to protect her from... well, himself.

"Just wait... Just... just stay right there for a second."

"Shit, Hermione, I'm not going to be able to wait very long..."

"It's okay," she said gently, opening her eyes and placing a soft palm against his cheek. He leaned into her touch and tried to slow his breathing. "It doesn't hurt much. It's getting better already."

"You're so goddamn beautiful," he sighed unexpectedly, stomach skin now clinging to hers.

She sighed back in reply and dropped her hand from his face to his neck.

And then, without warning, she hitched her legs up his waist another notch, and he felt his lower body give way to gravity, sinking further into her.

Terrified of accidentally pulling too hard, he released her hair and grabbed a fistful of his feather pillow as she rolled her hips again and he sank another inch.

"Am I hurting YOU?" she breathed, back arching ever so slightly away from the bed.

"Hell no..." he shivered. "Bestfuckingthingever."

"You can move now," she laughed, "in case you hadn't guessed."

"I love you," he said, pressing his forehead against hers.

"...too," she said through a groan as he finished collapsing on top of her, gluing his lips to her flushed cheek.

His breath hitched in his throat as he took half a moment to fully comprehend where he was and what he was currently doing... and how the HELL was he supposed to ever STOP doing this now that he'd started?

As much as he'd wanted to move before, now that he was completely surrounded by what had to be the warmest, tightest place on earth, he found it momentarily difficult to draw up the required force to drag himself back out again. Only the knowledge that he'd be leaving solely to return once more finally made it worth it, and he very, very slowly shifted his weight again, dragging back out of her.

"Mmm," she hummed, closing her eyes as her muscles rippled beneath smooth flesh. And this time, as he pushed back into her again, her body stretched more naturally to accommodate him, and he could tell something had changed, some light had been switched on or a wall torn down.

"Tell me it's better now, because fucking hell..." he managed to say, trailing off as his muscles trembled with the effort to restrain himself.

"Much," she moaned, opening her eyes as his lips carressed the tip of her nose.

He burrowed to a place that now felt wondrously new and perfectly familiar at the same time. As if he had found some hidden place he'd always been meant for.

"Very much," she concluded, and he dropped his nose to her right ear.

It suddenly felt so very unfair, knowing he had possibly one more movement left in him before he'd be done for. And she was only just starting to enjoy it. And so, calling back on what he'd done earlier, he had an idea... one that he knew would require so much more willpower than he thought he must possess. But he had to give it a try...

And so, with all the strength he could find, he finally pulled completely back out of her and slid down her body, heart pounding down slick skin until he rested his right cheek against the earthquake tremoring through her stomach.

"Ron?" she questioned, and he found her right hand with his left, squeezing lightly.

"Give me just a minute," he breathed, thumb passing over her knuckles.

He knew she'd enjoyed the things he'd done before, and he was never under any false impressions about how long or how magnificent he'd be able to make his first time... But he wanted hers to be more than just a build up with a bit of pain and discomfort as the climax. It was unfair that the actual act of making love was so much more pleasurable for him, dying happily with each movement inside of her...

But now, thinking it all through wasn't really helping him to calm down. So, releasing her hand, he closed his eyes.

Half a second later, her fingers passed through his hair. They continued drawing soothing patterns across his scalp, and for a while, he felt his body relaxing.

But before long, he became far too aware of the wet curls amidst her parted legs mingling with his own sweaty chest hairs, and he knew he was beyond hope of recovering any further.

And so, lifting his head to look up at her, chin grazing along her sweaty skin, he crawled up her body, hips gliding between her thighs, naturally locating his desired spot, much more easily this time.

He slid inside of her again, as slowly as he could manage, watching with awed satisfaction as her eyes rolled up and her lips parted. He found her left nipple with his right hand, flattening his palm over the curve of her breast as he pinched her lightly, rewarded by a thick moan from her open mouth. Her legs locked around him and he buried himself inside of her completely, heart pounding forcefully against her chest. As much time as he'd given himself to recover, he was sure he had no more than one or two good moves left even now...

He lifted his weight back up onto his elbows and, without thinking about what he was doing, almost instinct, he slipped one large hand underneath her, at the small of her back, where her spine arched away from the mattress. And as he slowly pulled himself up, halfway out of her, he wedged his hand lower, gripping her arse and pressing her firmly up against him at the same moment that he dropped his hips down again.

"...bloodysoddinghell!" he groaned as she half-screamed, half-moaned, one hand tugging his hair painfully as the other clawed at his side, nails cutting through his skin once more. She tilted her head back, chin jutting up, and with a centimetre's adjustment, her bottom lip slipped fully between both of his.

He hardly had time to realise it was all going to be over before his muscles were convulsing beneath the taut, sweaty skin that stretched over them. He released her swollen lip and ducked his head to sink his teeth lightly into her neck...

"Sorry," he mumbled into her skin as he gathered her up against him, slipping his whole arm underneath her, clutching her lower back as his veins pulsed sporadically.

She was making the tiniest breathy noises as her skin clung fiercely to his, and when he finally turned his head enough to view her gorgeous profile, resting the side of his jaw against her shoulder, he watched her eyes slip shut, eyelashes dancing against red cheeks.

He only then realised that his right hand was now half buried between their bodies, thumb flattening her still hardened left nipple, and he was sure he should move, but he couldn't see how he ever would be able to...

Panting raggedly, his nose grazed the right side of her jaw, and he watched as her lips curved brilliantly up into an out of focus smile. He caught her virus instantly, and broke out into a full fledged grin.

"Well," he whisper-laughed, "that was fucking brilliant."

"Mmm," she laughed back, opening her eyes groggily, and biting down on her smirking bottom lip.

She attempted to stretch beneath him, elongating her spine, and he was finally able to roll his thumb away from her nipple and slip his whole body left. But even his chest hairs attempted to remain glued to Hermione, and it took him several long moments to drag his weight off of her, to rest on his left side, facing her, and still miraculously pinned to her by necessity, thanking Merlin for the first time ever for the measly width of his bed.

She squirmed, giggling, for a moment, her right thigh trapped beneath his left hip. And he slipped away from her, lifting himself up as far as he could manage in the aftermath. And when she'd finally reclaimed her appendage, it was only to curve her left shoulder inward, drawing her body back towards him.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked playfully as she twisted her neck to touch her forehead to his.

"Mmm, no where," he muttered deeply, wiggling his left arm up from under her until he'd reached their shared pillow, tucking his arm comfortably beneath both of their heads. He turned further into her again, until their legs intertwined and her nipples came back into light contact with his now goosebump covered chest.

He draped his right arm lazily over her body, only just noticing that she was trembling.

"You okay?" he asked, lifting his head an inch off the pillow. "I didn't hurt you too badly, did I?" Concern floated up through his question as he furrowed his eyebrows at her.

"No."

"You sure?" he asked, smoothing his hand absentmindedly up and down her back.

She opened her eyes fully to look back into his.

"Of course I'm sure."

"Then why are you trembling?"

"Do you feel that?" she asked hoarsely.

He stared back at her, confused, waiting for her to elaborate. She sighed softly, contentedly, and lightly touched his sensitive side with her fingertips.

"Everything feels different now," she said softly, and her ribs rattled against his as she shivered. "Sorry, I can't stop shaking..."

His spine seemed to tingle, and he felt like he was understanding what she meant... how things were different, subtly, like crossing a bridge that was torn down the moment you set foot on the other side.

But it felt absolutely wonderful.

He reached awkwardly down to get the sheet that had found its way to the foot of the bed, and he dragged it back up over them as he resumed his position.

"C'mere," he said, gathering her somehow closer than before, and she relaxed half on top of him like an extension of his own body.

Encased in his still-tangled sheet, he rubbed his hands up and down her arms and back, trying to calm her shivering. But she tucked her arm against his chest and laughed.

"I think you're making it worse," she whispered into his neck.

"Sorry," he whispered back, but his voice was cut through by shuffling and muffled noises from below.

Hermione lifted her head to rest her chin on his chest, peering up at him. Brushing hair back from her cheek, he sighed sadly...

"Well, this is a really regrettable thing to have to say, but we'd better put some clothes on..." he trailed off, but he made no move to enact his own plan.

"Mm, I'm going to need a shower," Hermione said, vibrating on top of him with each of her words.

"Me too."

They blinked at each other, until at last, they both broke out in identical fits of grinning laughter. He could read her bloody mind, after all...

"Someone's so likely to find us..." Hermione trailed off.

"Oh, I know what that means," Ron said excitedly.

She furrowed her eyebrows at him as she propped herself up on one elbow, hovering halfway over him now, his palm still flat against her lower back.

"You know," he explained, "you've always got to say why something's a very bad idea... before you go along with it."

She sat up all the way, wrestling the sheet away from Ron with a few stubborn tugs, to cover her chest as she glared playfully down at him.

Ginny's laughter echoed up the stairs, much too close.

"Are you going to take a bloody shower with me or not?" Hermione whispered, lifting a heavily arched eyebrow.

"Fuck, I love it when you curse. Did you know that?" He blushed as he sat, ruffling a hand through his hair. "And yes. Absolutely yes. Shower. Yes."

His grin spread slowly as she bit her lip.

So this was what it was like on the other side of the bridge. What had taken them so bloody long to cross it and knock it down?


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Biting her swollen, grinning bottom lip, Hermione shuffled out of the bed, making an exaggerated effort to remain covered by Ron's sheet, twisting it out of the bed as she went, one last corner tickling Ron's overly sensitive skin as it trailed over his stomach, leaving him fully exposed on the bed to watch her.

But he was knocked from his trance as he heard his mother's voice downstairs. Eyes widening, he scooted to the edge of his bed and began scanning the nearby floor for his boxers. Finally locating them, he stretched one long arm halfway under the bed, leaning left to snatch them. When he straightened up, lifting a flexed foot to begin dressing, he found Hermione watching him, holding her knickers in a clenched fist.

Blushing, he lifted his arse and slipped his boxers the rest of the way on, running a hand through his hair as he stood awkwardly in front of her.

She cleared her throat daintily and turned her back on him. He was on the point of searching for the rest of his clothing when the sheet, formerly wrapped tightly under Hermione's arms, dropped with a shuffle to the rug.

He swallowed, taking in the newness of a full view of the back of Hermione's nude body, head to toe. He actually took a step back, just to see her better, as her arms twisted her bra, straightening it to put it on...

So okay, he'd never seen a completely naked girl in person. But he'd seen a fair few naked female arses in magazines, yes. And he'd be lying if he said any one of them had even come close to preparing him for seeing Hermione's. It was SO smooth and creamy and puffy in exactly the right way... curvy and, as he'd discovered earlier, a perfect fit for his palms.

Oblivious to Ron's worship, Hermione tossed her hair and slipped her bra straps over each shoulder, reaching back to fasten it, shoulder blade rolling beneath still-flushed skin. And then... she bent to pick up her shirt. A sort of sideways lean, twisting as her small fingers closed around the material.

Ron's knees buckled automatically, and he sat back down on his bed, mouth hanging slightly open, slouching, and now in direct eyeline with Hermione's perfectly proportioned arse.

She slipped her arms into her shirt and, as she began working on the buttons, the back hem brushed down along the heaviest part of the outward curve of her arse. She turned back around to face Ron, blushing as her fingers worked on the next button, a vertical strip of slightly sweaty chest skin still revealed as she worked to cover herself. His eyes darted down to the curls peeking out from beneath the front hem of her shirt just as she looked at him, pausing to be shocked at his position back on the bed, eyes glazed with renewed lust.

"Hello?" she teased, tilting her head to the side. He dragged his heavily lidded eyes up to hers, and a grin spread in slow motion from cheek to cheek.

"You have the best arse in the entire world. Did you know?"

Hermione blushed scarlet all over again.

"No, I don't!" she argued.

"Ohh, you do."

Harry's voice rang out from a level or so below... Ron cringed.

"Right. Let's not let Harry find out how great your arse is," and he lifted an eyebrow at her, grinning again, lopsidedly, as he resumed his search for the rest of his clothing, listening to the delightful sounds of a still shocked Hermione, giggling lightly at his praise and follow up joke. So, his standard order of events.

He found a stray t-shirt instead of working through the effort of buttoning however the hell many buttons his former article had contained. However many it was, it was a number his post-shag brain would have quite an awful lot of trouble counting to, at any rate.

And by the time he'd pulled it on, Hermione was tugging her jeans over the curve of her hips. He watched her over his shoulder, hair falling into his eyes. When she caught his gaze, she gave him a shy smile, toeing his own jeans in his direction as she lifted a solitary eyebrow. He smiled and bent to pick them up, hopping as he shimmied into them, brushing his fringe back from his forehead as he studied his general appearance, glancing down to wiggle his toes.

"Ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," he shrugged, and Hermione nodded once, raising her wand to undo the spells. And not a second had passed once she had, when a loud series of pounding footfalls began to ascend.

Hermione opened the door, acting far too casual, just as Ginny leapt onto the landing outside of Ron's room.

"Oh, you ARE up here," she panted, catching her breath. "Dinner'll be late. Mum's started cooking but sent me around the house with the message. We got some chocolate cakes for dessert. They smell incredible..."

Hermione adopted an expression of extremely over zealous interest and Ron bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"Right. That's all," Ginny said, backing up a step. But at the last moment, just as she was turning to go, she winked very suggestively in Ron's direction, and he bit much harder into his cheek than he had been before, probably cutting through the inside of his mouth with his teeth. He mentally swore as Ginny disappeared with a parade of descending thumps.

Hermione blew out a nervous breath and glanced back at Ron, narrowing her eyes.

"You've got to do this exactly how I say, because this is really a very stupid idea..."

He nodded, opening his mouth extra wide and shifting his jaw around, attempting to undo the damage he'd inflicted upon himself a moment ago. Hermione watched in a slightly mesmerized way before lifting her eyebrows until they had ascended very close to her hairline.

He stuck his tongue out at her before closing his mouth and smirking. She swallowed visibly and her lips parted. Thrown off by her sudden expression of... desire?... he blinked at her.

"Nevermind," she breathed, cheeks flushed lightly, "just follow me downstairs, only go on down past the loo when I go in. Go outside-" she lifted her fingers to air quote "-for a walk-" she lowered her hands "-and apparate into the loo once you've walked far enough that no one can see you from the house."

His smirk intensified.

"Got it?"

"Yes."

She nodded, brushed past him onto the landing, and took a breath.

"Right," and she began trekking down the stairs, Ron following close behind her.

He watched as her messy hair swayed against her back, stomach bubbling with butterflies. It was a different kind of nervousness now, one that could be classified as far more giddy and happy than terrified, quite the opposite of hours ago, when everything had begun with that row he had started.

He grinned at her back as they reached the second floor, and she turned towards the half-open loo door. She looked back and up at him, and he nodded confirmation of the completion of The Plan, phase one. She smiled softly, lightly biting her lip, and she disappeared inside, closing and locking the door behind her with a click.

Clearing his throat and trying not to grin too obviously, he continued the rest of the way down the stairs... only to run directly into Harry.

"Oi!" Harry steadied himself and straightened his askew glasses. "Where've you been?"

"In my room, where else?" Ron shrugged.

"Mmm," Harry said, widening his eyes in some attempt at what Ron could only guess was a suggestive gesture.

"Sod off," Ron laughed. "I'm going for a walk," and he took several long strides past Harry to open the front door.

"Ah, I'll join you," Harry said, quickly catching up.

Ron froze, hand still clutching the door knob.

"Sure, uh, sure you wouldn't like to spend some time with Ginny?" Ron tried, wondering where the hell his brain had melted off to...

Harry stared at Ron for several seconds before laughing and shaking his head.

"That's a trick question," Harry said, and he brushed past Ron to shuffle out onto the porch. Not sure what to do from here, Ron exited the house and shut the door behind him, knowing for sure only that staying inside the house to work this out would not be a good idea... He could hear his mother from the kitchen, instructing his father on the proper potato peeling spellwork.

"Okay, Ron," Harry said, stepping down off the porch and eyeing Ron suspiciously, "what the hell is up?"

Ron took Harry's arm and led him away from the house, out into the yard and cutting left towards tree cover.

"You've gotta go back inside," Ron said, "and let everybody who asks know that I'm out for a walk and will be back for dinner."

"Why?" Harry looked on the fence between concern and playful teasing, awaiting Ron's next move to jump down to the proper side of that fence...

"Oh hell, Harry, okay," Ron sighed, letting go of Harry as they finally crossed into the deep trees, out of sight of the house. He ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I'm meeting Hermione and-"

"Ah. Got it," Harry cut in, full on smirking now. "Say no more. Go do... whatever you're going to do... I'll cover."

Ron let out a heavy breath and laughed.

"Thanks, mate..."

Harry shook his head.

"Look," Ron added, "just don't tell Hermione you had any idea what was...uh, really going on because...yeah."

He shrugged and scratched the back of his head, hair sticking up in the process.

"No problem," Harry chuckled. "Right, going. See you at dinner," and he turned to go back up to the house.

Ron blew out another breath, butterflies kicking up again, full force, and he shook his limbs, grinning.

"Here goes," he whispered roughly, and he turned, disapparating on the spot.


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N:** Um. Woah. This just gets smuttier, so you know. The next chapter, after this one, is... probably the smuttiest thing I have ever posted, so if you are used to my usual implied situations with the occasional bit of direct information, prepare yourself for kind of the opposite of that... hah_

_Here we go..._

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><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

When he popped into the loo, the shower was already running. Her clothes were stacked on the rug. And two sets of clean, new clothes were stacked under the towel rack.

Bending an arm back over his shoulder, he grabbed onto the back of his shirt and ripped it off over his head, toeing off his shoes while simultaneously thumbing the button of his jeans. The shower curtain ripped back on one side and Hermione peered out, catching his eyes as she held the curtain closed over her body from the neck down.

"Nicely done," she said, smiling shyly.

"You deviated from The Plan!" he pointed out, tilting his head down towards the clean sets of clothes, his own jeans now hanging open and so low on his hips they were tugging his boxers down with them.

"Oh. Yes," she said, flustered. "I suppose that I did. R-realized we needed clean clothes..."

His jeans slipped lower and she gasped loudly, eyes glued to his lower body. He looked down, only to blink at the trail of ginger hair that thickened as it reached the too-low waistband of his boxers.

"Get in here," Hermione breathed, and he whipped his head up to stare wide-eyed back at her. But she rasped out a sigh and ripped the curtain closed again.

He swallowed thickly, stomach absolutely churning, madly.

His jeans and boxers were on the floor in less than a second, and he shook each foot to rid himself of them completely before reaching shakily for the curtain. He pulled it back, slow enough to be considered a relatively high level of torture... and then, he was watching her, bit by bit, as her body was revealed.

Her hands were in her hair, hot water running down the back of her head, trickling along the curve of her neck. Her eyes were shut, and he knew that she knew that he was watching her. Somehow, this knowledge turned him on further still, and he lowered his eyes as he drew the curtain back further...

Her spine curved beautifully, arched as her hands worked to pile her hair on top of her head, back finally swaying into two tiny dimples on either side of her tailbone. Her arse began as he held his breath, puckering out and shifting to the side as she lifted her left foot to scratch the back of her right calf with her big toenail.

The shower curtain rings clinked against the rod as he tugged another few inches.

Several tracks of running water molded to her breasts, rolling rhythmically towards hardened, blushing nipples. Between them, sternum heaved with her sharp breathing, another stream of rushing water gliding down to pool in her belly button before dropping into frizzy, wet curls and slipping out of sight between her legs...

He groaned, squeezing his thighs slightly as his erection strained tightly and painfully towards her.

Without another pause or thought, he stepped over the edge of the tub, large feet flexing against the warm porcelain beneath them as he steadied himself behind her, forearm pressed against cool tile. His fingers ached to touch her, and he reached out to run them feather lightly down her shoulder blades. She sucked in an audible breath, hands freezing in her hair. And as his fingers worked downward and he took a step closer, she leaned towards the wall, left elbow digging into the tile to balance her as his left big toe curled up her left heel.

"Mmm," she hummed lightly, and his hands came to rest on her hips, thumbs accidentally positioned right against those dimples...

He rubbed the pads of his thumbs in opposite circles, smoothing across the dimples as he watched his own movements, spellbound.

She leaned inches backwards, and he slid his hands around her sides to lie flat against her smooth, wet stomach. Water rained down against his chest as her hands slipped from her head, as if she lacked the strength to hold them up any longer.

He blinked as water clung to his eyelashes, but he was immediately distracted as she scooted back one more inch, what was unknowingly the last inch that separated the overarch of her lower back from his erection... which now glided up to rest along her spine easily, both soaked.

Groaning and tilting his head back, he moved his hands against her stomach to stack, right above left, drawing himself closer as she shivered. Water cascaded along his fringe, gluing his hair to his forehead and ears. And, closing his eyes and uselessly shaking water from his head, he tilted forward, lowering his lips to her neck, right cheek brushing against her right shoulder.

She pressed her head back into his left shoulder, freeing the majority of the shower spray to run past her and down the back of Ron's neck where he remained curved over her. But then she seemed to sink a bit, and suddenly, his right hand met the bottom edge of her breasts, now a somewhat familiar feeling.

He was sure it was not a matter of being ABLE to get used to it... as he was, in fact, already prepared to not be able to go a day without...

He thought of so many things he could whisper through the heavy, steady sound of the shower, things he could promise her neck through a layer of warm water. But his thumb slid up between her breasts, and she seemed to quite enjoy every little nuance of what he was doing, so he attempted to open his eyes instead, through splattering water... to look straight down at what his hands were doing. But it became too difficult to see through the spray, and he closed his eyes again, focusing so closely on each feeling, to make sure he got it right.

It was now left up to his own impulses and instincts, and her reactions to each of them. And, breathing unsteadily, he smoothed one eager palm up over her right breast, completely covering her with his hand.

Her left hand flew up backwards, to wrap around his neck. Her nails dug into base of his scalp before stretching flat to extend and weave into his thick, soaked hair.

"Ron..." he heard her breathe.

His chin bored into the dip between her neck and right shoulder, his eyes still shut against thick streams of hot water. And his hand seemed to take the lead for him, squeezing soft, moldable tissue, highly aware of the bead of hardened and over-extended flesh right in the centre, poking up into the curve of his palm. Finally slipping his hand down a bit, he found her nipple with his thumb, as he had earlier in his bed. And, grasping with his thumb and index finger, he rolled his wrist to twist her pinched nipple... to which she reacted quite positively, shivering and clenching muscles as she let out a high-pitched, wavering moan.

"Uhhh..." he moaned back, trembling down to his toes. And suddenly, he was sliding down the back of her body, releasing her breasts to balance behind her on his knees. Head tilted up, eyes still closed, he attached his open mouth to the centre of her back, dragging a long, heavy kiss down her spine as his left hand sank to squeeze the front of her left thigh, right hand brushing down over hot, wet curls. When he'd arrived at the natural stopping point, head facing forward, his lips found the outward curve of her lower back and he wondered...

Far too tempted to actually stop himself at this stage, he lowered himself completely onto knees and balls of feet... and he dragged his mouth down another inch, feeling his heart pound as his lips moved with the swell of her arse, sliding down the centre several inches.

She gasped, left hand now reaching back to grab him by the hair. And he angled his mouth right... and sank his teeth gently into her right arse cheek.

His right hand slipped down, index and middle fingertips digging between her thighs.

"Fuck," he breathed as he released her arse, forcing his eyes open to observe the light bite marks he'd left behind.

But in his awed moment of bliss, she managed to turn around at lightning speed, and he was suddenly face to face with-

"Bloody hell..."

He could lean a fraction forward and the tip of his nose would be-

...so he did. Both of his hands now gripped her arse. And he shut his now burning eyes again as water ran down her perfect body, towards his nose. Which was now buried in drenched curls.

And then, just as both of her hands had found his hair again, he opened his mouth. And kissed her.

It took less than two seconds to realise the necessity of using tongue in this scenario.

Even his tongue seemed to be trembling as he released it to roam free, rubbing up towards her tightly clenched thighs... which were suddenly not so tightly clenched, but almost welcoming.

"Ron, are you _seriously_..." he thought he heard her start to say.

And he was. Quite seriously. If that was alright with her...

He lifted his head from his task, chin now against her curls, but eyes still closed.

"May I?" he prayed up at her.

She laughed, and he felt her stomach ripple with the force of it.

"Do you really want..." she half-sighed.

"God, yes," he sighed back, smiling as he imagined her face tilted down towards his, an obvious grin present there, as he'd heard in her happily shocked voice. Shower streams beat down all over his face, directly pounding against his blushing skin.

"You..." she almost cried, "you can do anything you want to do. I think I told you so before."

He hummed his renewed lust, his fingers digging into her arse cheeks a bit harder than he'd intended. And just before resuming his previous position, he turned his head to the left, to press his right cheek against her stomach, lifting his right hand from her arse to her lower back, to flatten against her and hug her tightly.

"I love you," he mumbled to her hipbone. And then he turned again, and dropped his lips just above the spot where flattened, frizzy wet curls turned to hot, flowery folds of delicious skin...

He opened his mouth, dragged it down, and marveled at the way she lifted a tentative right leg, toes against tile as she balanced there. He suddenly found his way forward much more open and accessible.

But one more thing would make it perfect.

He blinked open his eyes, and, dropping his left hand to the top of the back of her right thigh, he gripped her leg and lifted, ducking his left shoulder under her thigh to hold her there.

"Oh," he heard her whisper, and then she tugged his hair, and his world went black as he closed his eyes again.


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N:** Thanks to **Dove** for cheering my computer on! I managed to get my old laptop to come on in random shifts, finally resulting in this post! This is soooo exciting! We have internet back at the house, I have more hot tea than anyone could ever need, and I have the next 13 hours off work! Miraculous!_

_This chapter has ALL of the smut. All. Well, okay, a lot :)_

_ahem._

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><p><strong>Chapter 16<strong>

He tasted hot water and an extremely new, delightfully familiar flavour that could only be called Hermione. He recalled the blissful moment from his bedroom earlier, tasting her for the first time on his own finger, and he suddenly could hardly believe it had happened at all... even with his face currently buried in-

Yeah.

Just as he'd suspected, it was nearly impossible to fathom all that he was actually doing. And he felt sure it would take a lifetime to ever really believe he'd been so lucky.

He hadn't the first sodding clue what he was doing, where he should place his tongue, where his lips should burrow, or what the fuck he should be doing with his hands at this stage. So he began with light kisses, moving a centimetre at a time and gauging her reaction. But as he shifted his shoulder under her thigh and attached his lips to a bit of buried, slightly swollen skin to suck off a droplet of water, she gasped out a series of throaty shivers and his own body reacted similarly with the pleasure of hearing her so thoroughly approve.

So he grew bolder.

Touching the tip of his tongue to her hot skin, he slid it down, to fit into the opening that seemed to go on indefinitely as he extended his tongue to taste the most flavourful part of her. It was like discovering a treasure, suddenly overwhelmed by her taste and her scent, much more concentrated here as he closed his lips around her.

"Ohh," she gasped, leaning her weight down onto his mouth.

His chest constricted with pleasure as he drew his lips away only long enough to take a breath before closing them around her again, tongue rubbing through hot, hidden places as water rushed down his nose, dripping through her curls and down into his mouth.

And then, exploring north, he found that tiny swollen tip that had seemed important earlier, and he gently sucked, all effort going to that one little motion as his hands slackened their grip on the backs of her thighs.

She half-screamed and tugged his hair until he was sure he'd have lost a decent sized chunk. And, eyes rolling behind clamped lids, he sucked again, now sure he was onto something brilliant.

"Oh my Goddd!" she wheezed, heel digging into his back.

His lips curled into a grin as she began to tremble, softly at first, but more violently as he began alternatively licking and sucking...

"You should... keep doing... wh-what you're doing," she moaned, and he didn't even mind if she now rendered him completely bald from tugging so viciously at his slick hair.

He suddenly remembered his hands on her upper thighs, and, just as he drew his head back a quarter inch, clinging with suction to her now very swollen flesh, he slid his hands up to the bottom of her arse, water rippling down her body to flow slowly between his fingers.

She was making so many tiny, incredible sounds that it was becoming difficult to take note of every one of them through the heavy splattering of the shower and the beat of his own heart. His tongue became more involved as her body tremored inconsistently, and he slipped his left hand along her smooth, raised left thigh, crossing his right hand to the opposite side of her arse. And as her stomach tightened with a sharp inhale, his right hand made its way south, without motive... only discovering its subconscious intentions when his thumb slipped down between her legs... dipping up into thickly soaked warmth.

He had no time to consider his next move.

He slid his thumb up, easily locating her opening by temperature alone. And, gripping the inside half of her right arse cheek with the rest of his hand, he felt her body tighten around his thumb as it passed into her.

His lips trembled with impossibly heightened nerves as he tried to focus, through the haze of arousal, on the rest of his task...

And it didn't take long.

She began to crumple, half-crying as she released his hair and dropped her weight again, giving him far more to support than he was prepared to handle.

His lips released her, their job done, and he lifted his head, panting furiously, to look up into her red face, eyelids dancing, lips parted wide.

So this was what it looked like.

All dreams and fantasies and imagined scenarios could sod off to hell.

He was the luckiest goddamn prat in the entire universe.

She slid her thigh off of him, bracing her right palm against the tile as she lowered herself onto her knees before him, shaking sporadically.

They stared into each other's eyes for what could have been a lifetime, his hands lightly rubbing up and down her arms, both breathing in random bursts through their mouths.

"Can't... believe... I just... did that," he finally managed to say, grinning broadly.

"Well..." she grinned back, "you did."

They laughed, still staring at each other.

"You... taste fucking fantastic," he muttered then, knees digging painfully into porcelain, chest heaving each inhale.

"Let's see, then," she said, fierce blush somehow rising, even through aftermath flush... And he furrowed his brows for a brief moment before her lips crashed against his. And he understood.

Her tongue ran along the crease between his lips, and he opened his mouth more than willingly.

He wrapped his arms around her, forgetting the pain in his knees, and her chest glided against his, water pooling between her breasts. But as she moved her hips further away from his, she slipped her hand between their bodies... lower, lower... fingertips trailing through running streams of shower water until she'd reached his belly button, with no signs of stopping.

He pulled back from her mouth to open his eyes wide.

"Hermione," he choked, "you don't have to-"

"But what if I want to?"

He was sure now that it would take no more than her tiny, gentle hand fully wrapping around his erection once for him to lose control...

"DINNER!"

His mum's voice boomed through the house, clearly under the influence of a 'sonorus'.

Ron groaned deeply as Hermione cringed.

"Really? !" he whinged, ducking his head before looking sadly back into Hermione's eyes.

"We have all night," she whispered shyly, biting her lip before standing.

Realising the joyous truth in her statement, he grinned and stood with her as she reached for the soap, frantically lathering to wash her body. She passed him the soap casually as she lifted her arms to wash underneath them. He lathered his own hands and scrubbed his face, clenching his eyes shut and finally leaning comically over Hermione's head to push his face into the shower spray. She laughed as he hovered over her, and when he rubbed water from his face and opened his eyes, she turned her back to him, piling her hair atop her head again to shampoo it.

He lathered his hands once more and reached forward to wash her back for her, automatically, moving quickly to avoid being searched for by his mother.

"Thanks," she tossed over her shoulder.

"Any time," he smiled, smoothing his hands over her shoulders before she turned around again, backing into the shower spray to rinse her bubbly hair, closing her eyes.

Thick, foamy soap ran down her body in rivers and globs, and he found himself suddenly transfixed by the patterns the soap made across her naked, glistening body, molding to the shape of her breasts, clinging to her thighs...

He tried to snap out of it, remembering his mother's call, but it was next to impossible to simply will his eyes away from her...

But she finished rinsing her hair and opened her eyes, blushing when she caught sight of his desire increasing all over again.

"Turn around," she whispered, and for a moment, he simply obeyed her, having absolutely no clue what she was up to.

But then her small palms smoothed along his back, and he caught on that she was returning the favour. He laughed lightly, allowing his eyes to slip shut at the feel of her softly touching him through soap and water. He leaned his forehead against the tile and smiled.

"Cheers," he whispered.

She ran her hands in a final zigzag pattern downward before he felt her lips dead centre, lightly kissing his back before drawing completely away. He looked over his shoulder, down at her... and he could swear her eyes had been glued to his arse before she'd noticed him watching her and turned away again.

He cleared his throat and finished washing before lathering his own hair. He shuffled around Hermione until they had switched places, facing each other again as he ducked his head under the shower.

"Hurry," she mouthed, as he closed his eyes, nodding.

He shook his head beneath the pouring water, ears suddenly burning and skin tingling. She was watching him. He knew it. He could feel it.

Goosebumps radiated across his chest, from locations where her eyes were surely roaming.

Suddenly, she touched him, and he jolted as if shocked as her hands melted down his torso. He forced soap off his face with his fingertips and opened his eyes.

"Just," she sniffed, "being thorough." And she rinsed soap bubbles from her hands, blushing deeply again.

Surely it was unhealthy to blush this hard, this often. But blood rushed to his own face as he tried once again to calm down, sadly sliding sideways as she reached back to turn off the shower.

The room fell slowly silent as the last of the soapy water trickled down the drain.

"Well, that was fun," he said, smirking lopsidedly.

She nodded, giggling, and she pulled back the shower curtain, scanning the room for a towel.

"Here," he said, and he bent to stretch an arm forward to grab ahold of his crumpled jeans, fishing in the pocket for his wand.

She watched him, eyes dancing in anticipation of him performing magic, and he had a very strong urge to tease her about it, but he left it... for later...

Grinning, he swished his wand lazily.

"Accio towel," he mumbled, and a large, fluffy orange towel came zooming towards him from the half-opened closet. He caught it easily and shook it to open it. "Engorgio," he said, and the towel doubled in size.

Without him even having to present the idea, she scooted up next to him, sides touching, and he grinned down at her before wrapping the towel around their bodies and holding it shut at the back of her neck, repositioning them so they were facing each other. She tilted her head up as her damp body nuzzled into his, and he dipped his head to kiss her softly.

And he was suddenly lost, snogging her. Obligations and timing vanished as her arms slipped around his waist and his tongue met hers between her teeth.

When they finally pulled back from each other, in slow motion, he blinked, as if waking from a coma.

"Oh, yes," she said hoarsely, "we should probably get out of the tub now."

He blinked sleepily down at her and a smile spread wide across his face.

"Right."

And he scooted the closed ends of the towel around to his right for her to hold. He ducked his head into the towel and ruffled his hair with it as she laughed. When he lifted his head again, hair stuck up straight in every possible direction. He shimmied around, drying a bit more, and then he bent to kiss the back of her hand lightly, where she was still clutching the towel to keep it shut.

He cleared his throat at her hands and raised an eyebrow and, still laughing, she caught on and opened the towel for him to step out of the tub. She wrapped the towel completely under her arms as he slipped the clean boxers she'd brought for him onto his legs, snapping elastic as he stretched them over his arse and remaining erection...

She looked apologetically down.

He blushed a bit harder as he ruffled his hair again with his hand.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Nah," he brushed off, "I'll be alright."

The thumping of descending footsteps could be heard outside, and he was reminded of the fact that he should probably be making a bit more haste...

He scrambled into his clean pair of (perfectly fitted) jeans, now fondly remembering the too small pair she'd packed for him last year... He kicked his feet through the leg holes, jumping to lift the waist to its proper, low hanging position. Hermione was watching him far too closely as he tucked everything in and zipped...

She stepped out of the tub and towards him, towel held tightly shut. And another memory struck him... of the night he'd returned to her in the tent months ago, how she'd moved like a ghost in his direction, almost gliding...

He felt his stomach lurch at the memory, but then things turned so very different. Tucking the towel ends under her arm, she lowered both hands to his jeans, slowly buttoning them for him.

He swallowed.

She ran her fingers along the elastic band of his boxers, tickling his skin with her nails.

"Okay, you should go," she said finally. "But I've got... some ideas... for later," she added, biting her lip as she touched her forehead to his chin.

"This dinner is going to be bloody fantastic," he said sarcastically, lips brushing against the top of her head as he spoke.

She grinned and stepped purposefully back away from him. Sighing, he collected his shirt and pulled it on, straightening the collar before retrieving his wand.

"See you in a minute," he said, slipping on his shoes and giving her one last shy, lopsided smile, before he turned on the spot, and disapparated.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

He reappeared behind the shed... face to face with Harry, who was picking up stray brooms, evidently from a game Ron had not been invited to participate in.

No traces of disappointment at this news, Ron found himself actually grinning, knowing that what he'd been doing had been far, far superior...

"Ah," Harry said, looking up at Ron, "dinner's ready."

"Yeah," Ron said simply... But as he started his walk towards the house, Harry stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"You should dry your hair," Harry suggested, wrinkling his nose in what Ron could only guess was disgust at having to come even as close as he had to admitting knowledge of exactly what Ron had just been getting up to...

Oh, if only Harry REALLY knew, exactly...

Ron cleared his throat.

"Oh, right. Cheers, mate," he said, but he had no time to remove his wand from his pocket before Harry was taking care of it for him. With a few simple swishes, Ron's hair fluffed and dried and swayed down into his eyes again.

"Right. Shall we?" and Harry re-pocketed his wand, smirking far too knowingly to himself.

They trudged up to the house in blushing silence, walking through the front door with stomachs growling. And as Ron crossed into the kitchen, he caught Hermione's eyes where she sat across the table from the only two open spots.

She let out an instantaneous puff of relieved oxygen, eyes on the very top of his head and raking across his fringe before dropping to her empty plate where she proceeded to slide her fork around the glass and lightly clear her throat. Ah, so she was checking the dryness of his hair. Thank Merlin for Harry...

Ron grinned down at Hermione's ducked head for half a second before remembering he had to at least look semi-casual. And for some reason, it felt so odd, to have such a perfect little secret, like if he so much as coughed the wrong way, everyone would immediately know that he'd just given his girlfriend an orgasm with his sodding mouth in the shower upstairs.

Unassociated laughter bubbled up inside of him for absolutely no reason, and he bit his tongue to quell it as he dragged his chair noisily out from under the table to have a seat.

Bowls began shuffling their way magically around the table in his direction and he distracted himself with filling his plate as his parents chatted with Percy, who was seated at the opposite end of the table. Ron could certainly not be bothered...

Especially when...

His eyes shot up to stare unblinkingly forward at Hermione. Who had just slipped her toes over his foot.

But she looked innocent enough, busy with filling her own plate with salad.

Alright. So it was nothing.

But her foot wasn't leaving. And if she'd done it accidentally-

But she moved it again, higher up to slip bare toes under the hem of his jeans.

He stared her down, daring her to admit, in some way, that her intentions were as cunning and flirtatious as he was beginning to suspect...

And that's when she lifted her eyes to his, for half a second... which was exactly long enough to see the truth.

Swallowing hard and mentally gearing up for her game, he nodded once... imperceptible to anyone who didn't know what he was in the midst of...

Her big toe rubbed a circle into his shin, and he took a large bite of potato to cover his wheeze. But when he looked up at her again, she was tilting a glass of pumpkin juice against her lips, and... rubbing those lips against the glass. To the average onlooker, it might appear that she'd simply made an adjustment to an awkwardly positioned first drink. But he knew so much better, and he watched, stricken, as she gulped gentle mouthfuls of juice, finally lowering her glass.

And licking her lips.

Far, _far_ too slowly.

Her tongue had to have been out of her mouth for a full five seconds.

He lunged for his own juice, clamping his eyes shut as he gulped it down heavily, trying to cool down with the icy beverage. When he set his glass down again, a droplet of juice rolled along the thick pout of his bottom lip, and he caught her breathing sharply through her mouth as he wiped the drop away with the tip of his finger before sucking it into his mouth.

She froze, eyes glued to his mouth.

Wow.

So, she liked that. About as much as he did, judging by her reaction.

Stunned by his own obvious sexual appeal to her, he recalculated his attack and moved his feet away from hers for long enough to slip off a shoe. She furrowed her eyebrows at him for a quarter second before Ginny, seated to Hermione's right, engaged her in conversation, an exchange that Ron could not even be bothered with comprehending.

Instead, he slid his foot straight up her leg, going for a much more direct attack. And, slouching in his chair as he filled his fork with roast beef, his toes parted her thighs, digging between them until they fell apart. And he watched devilishly as her fingers tapped, agitated, against the table top... as she continued to nod and smile at Ginny's animated words.

He ate the food from his fork with enthusiasm, flexing his bare toes against her inner thigh. And as he finally reached the top, brushing against a newly familiar place, she clenched her legs shut again, chest heaving as she returned to her full plate of food.

Ron attacked his juice glass again, going for a sure reaction, and this time, as he lowered his glass again, he allowed a drop of the juice to trickle all the way down his chin, rolling through stubble until it clung in an attempt to stay attached to him. He extended his tongue to lick it away before tracking his index finger upward to catch the last bit and suck it into his mouth again.

She clamped her eyes shut, shuddering, before she focused intently on her plate, pushing peas around absently.

Oh, he was winning this one. Absolutely.

And he was growing a bit smug about it, grin spreading...

Until.

Her eyes snapped up suddenly, and she scooted her chair back just far enough for him to lose his balance, foot crashing to the floor as he slid several inches down the back of his own chair. His mum finally noticed him at the other end of the table and gave him a slightly confused but stern glare.

"Sorry, mum," he mumbled, sitting up straight again.

She shook her head disapprovingly before returning her attention to Harry, with whom she'd apparently been deep in conversation, prior to the interruption.

Hermione smirked down at her plate as she stabbed a rather large strip of carrot with her fork. Ron blushed a shade deeper before smirking back, placing his elbow firmly on the tabletop to rest his cheek against his hand, obscuring his face from his mum's view.

And then.

She lifted her carrot-laden fork to her lips, and opened her mouth, in a calculated not-quite-wide enough sort of way. And rather than allow her teeth to do their job, she ever so slowly sucked the carrot into her mouth, bit by bit.

His jaw actually dropped open as he stared at her.

She closed her eyes, as if she was enjoying this meal more than any other meal had ever been enjoyed.

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, trying to shut his gaping mouth and mentally screaming at himself to look away. But it was a true failure, eyes glued to her lips as they caressed that bloody carrot until half of it had disappeared inside of her mouth. And then, lifting her lips so he could see clearly, she bit down, severing the carrot in two. She lowered her fork to her plate and chewed, adopting a rather innocent expression.

Ohhh, how thoroughly he'd lost this round.

He sank deeper into his seat again and closed his eyes in an attempt to calm down.

Harry slurped his juice distinctly louder than necessary, to Ron's left, and Ron opened his eyes at last... only to catch Harry glancing suspiciously in his direction.

Well, sod everybody. Hermione was looking way too polite and perfect after practically knocking him off of his chair and onto his arse... He had to retaliate. Now.

He scanned the table for some inspiration. And he found those chocolate cakes Ginny had spoken of earlier, just levitating towards them from the oven. Fresh then. And coated in fudge.

Fucking perfect.

He snatched a cake from the plate enthusiastically, watching with glee as Hermione's eyes widened in terror.

He nodded in her direction, grinning broadly. And then, staring down the cake, he located a chocolate drip and knew precisely where to begin. Holding the cake slightly to the side, so as not to obstruct her view, he extended his tongue and lapped up the drip.

He heard her gulp.

Shivering with excitement, he moved in again, taking the tiniest nibble from the bottom corner. And to his utter delight, warm fudge began to ooze from the inside. Chocolate FILLED cakes? Oh God, he was a lucky bastard.

He had to acknowledge his own stance as king of Hermione chess, and he did so by tilting his head in her direction, lifting an eyebrow as he grinned lopsidedly. She looked positively terrified. And completely entranced.

And so, returning his attention to the cake, he attached his lips to the opening he'd made in the bottom of the cake. And he sucked.

Chocolate flowed into his mouth and he closed his eyes, sucking again.

Hermione squeaked desperately as the last of the chocolate filling trickled out. But he had to be thorough, as Hermione herself had said earlier... And he stuck his tongue into the hole, pulling his lips back so she could see as he cleaned out any remaining traces of fudge. He finally backed away from the shell of a cake, licking and smacking his lips to remove any remaining chocolate drops. And then, figuring he wasn't one to waste any bits of a perfectly good chocolate, he popped the whole remaining cake into his mouth and chewed happily, locking eyes with Hermione's.

She was breathing in heavy pants through her parted lips. Her eyes were wide and sparkling. And the beginning of a slight sweat had broken out across her forehead.

Check-fucking-mate.

He swallowed, and brushed crumbs from the table top into his hand.

"Dinner was lovely, mum," he said casually. "Thanks." He located his shoe with his toes and slipped his foot back inside of it.

And he stood, stretching his arms high above his head, revealing a large amount of stomach in the process... which he patted with a large, bony hand, actually winking secretly down at Hermione.

She glared up at him, cheeks bright red. And he could not wait for his payback.


End file.
